Professionals´perspectives on their collaboration in working with unacompanied refugee children : A qualitative study

Abstract: The aim of this study was to explore some social workers’ and psychologists’ perspectives ontheir collaboration concerning unaccompanied refugee children. More specifically; in which situations do the social workers and psychologists collaborate with each other in their work with unaccompanied refugee children and what challenges and possibilities do they describe in their collaborative work? This qualitative study was carried out in one municipality in Sweden with a high quantity of unaccompanied refugee children. Three social workers and two psychologists were interviewed. The interviewees described existing collaboration between the two professions when working with unaccompanied refugee children as regarding the young person ́s health. Most often the collaboration was described as taking place in so called sip-meetings that is an obligatory meeting between the two professions regarding the young person's health. However, also challenges regarding their collaboration as lack of resources and communication between these two professions emerged and are discussed.