Fieldwork: The future to discourage juvenile delinquency?

The purpose of the study was to investigate how preventive work is conducted under the current Social Services Act and personal thoughts from outreach workers regarding what it could look like if the new Social Services Act comes into effect. The idea was to investigate how outreach workers work to discourage juvenile delinquency. The implementation of six semi-structured interviews with outreach workers gave us knowledge about what they thought were important components of preventive work. The collected empirical data was thematized and four main themes emerged. These were then analyzed with the help of previous research and theories regarding discretion and empowerment. The results of the study indicate that outreach workers work relatively equally and that they feel they have a large amount of discretion. However, the distribution of work tasks varies based on the size of the municipality, but what outreach workers mainly focus on is outreach, relationship-building, providing information and building self-esteem and confidence in youths. The results show that preventive work can be carried out with different forms of working methods and outreach workers' attitudes towards the new Social Services Act. Conclusions that can be drawn from the study are that it is beneficial, not only for the target group but also for society at large, to carry out good preventive work, but there is still a need for further research.