Stök, ungdomsbus och oro

- om spänningar mellan kontroll och omsorg i samverkanspraktiken områdesbaserad SSPF

Abstract

This article explores the trend of using complex collaborative practices to prevent problems among young people, by analyzing so-called SSPF (collaboration between school, social ser­vices, police, and the leisure sector) from the perspective of social control. SSPF aims to prevent criminality and substance use among young people, and can be targeted at individuals, groups, or geographical areas. As previous research has primarily focused on the individual-based SSPF, this article shifts the focus to area-based SSPF, and how this type of SSPF work actualizes ten­sions between care and control. The analysis is based on empirical material collected during an ethnographic study at a social services office located near a larger city in southern Sweden, and consists of data concerning area-based SSPF. The analysis shows that area-based SSPF involves three processes in which tensions between care and control are prominent: information-sharing, problem-description, and intervention-initiation.Within these processes, SSPF work can identi­fy and describe perceived problems at a general area level, which to some extent are assumed to cause concern for children and young people in the area, and initiate interventions. The analysis shows how these processes relies on blurred boundaries, concerning area-based SSPF’s aim, target group, professions and other collaborative groups, contributing to contionusly manifesting interweavings, conflicts and boundaries between care and control, and, in turn, enable an ex­pansion of social control. The article thereby shows different ways that tensions can be manifes­ted when preventive social work is carried out through complex collaborative practices and coope­ration between different professional groups.