Sofia Enell

‘I Got to Know Myself Better, My Failings and Faults’ Young People’s Understandings of being Assessed in Secure Accommodation

This article explores young people’s understandings of assessments conducted in secure accommodation. The concepts of ‘institutional identity’ and ‘text-mediated’ actions have been used in the analysis. The main empirical material is repeated interviews with assessed young people during a two-year period. In the findings, the stories of three young people display understandings of appreciation, disappointment and self-development. The assessments seem to have made the youths aware of their ‘failings and faults’. An analysis of the written assessments found institutional identities of ‘inner problems and unstructured everyday lives’. In conclusion, the young people’s understandings of the meanings and implications of the assessments are suggested to be connected to the caseworkers’ text-mediated actions and their position in the assessment process. The young people’s stories indicate the need to consider the institutional context of the assessments and to acknowledge young people’s efforts in care.

Young people in limbo: perceptions of self-presentations when being assessed in secure accommodation

In Sweden, young people are assessed in institutions at the request of the social services, a situation that can be described as being in limbo, in a state of uncertainty. Using the concepts of self-presentation and institutional processes in total institutions, this research aims to analyse young people’s perceptions of being assessed in secure accommodation. The empirical material consists of repeated interviews with 16 adolescents assessed in secure accommodation. Three situations were identified in which the young people felt that their self-presentations were in some way in or out of their control: the placement situation; the assessment situation and the assessment-outcome situation. The youths perceived their self-presentations to be influenced by the setting (i.e., the institution). In addition, there were two parts to being in limbo: being on site in the institution and being distant from the social services. The young people’s experience of being assessed in an institution was characterized by feelings of a loss of control over self-presentation and of their perceptions of themselves.