- Innovation, professional and service development
- Social work for children and young people / child welfare
- Social work for adults / substance abuse and mental health
- Services and practice for gender minority groups
- Exclusion and marginalisation
- Framework conditions for professional practice
PhD programme in social sciences
Background
The research group is an arena for researchers who are concerned with methodological, theoretical and practical issues related to welfare and welfare services. The welfare state's services are comprehensive and cover a wide range of measures aimed at different user groups within health, care, welfare and education. In this research group, it is especially welfare services within social work, child welfare, substance abuse/ mental health and NAV that are in focus, although other welfare services may be included as well.
Framework conditions for professional practice are changing, partly due to new management models, demographic changes, digitalisation, increased user participation and expectations of knowledge-based practice. Users of the services are expected to have a greater influence than before on services design, implementation and evaluation. At the same time, the user groups are more diverse and the need for various services is greater than before.
Current projects
- RESILIENT - Building Resilient Communities through Inclusive Education in East Africa. Aimed at strengthening research and capacity building in social work in Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) through the Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research (NORHED).
- Through the NFR-supported project Innovation and Service Development through Evolving Forms of Collaboration (INNOS), the research group has developed new knowledge about new forms of collaboration in different welfare services and about the various implications of such processes for service providers and users of the services. This work will be continued in new projects.