The research group aims to conduct research for the future of child welfare and family welfare and contribute to knowledge-based development regionally, nationally, and internationally. The research group works in close contact with child and family welfare services. Our research shall support the services and be directed towards areas, contexts, and knowledge needs, which are relevant for professional practice in encounters with children and young people and their families.
Thematic initiatives:
Public services practices and measures, such as; child welfare investigations, family councils, empowering and dialogue-based practices, child welfare institutions, clientification and stigmatization, gender issues, professionalization and professional knowledge.
Children and young people with Sami/minority background, such as; context and cultural competence, cultural sensitivity and cultural knowledge. Indigenous people’s children's rights. Participation, measures and working methods for the services in encounters with minorities. Theoretical perspectives and research methods in the study of cultural significances, cultural differences and children and young people with minority background.
Mental health in the general child and adolescent population, mental health among children and adolescents in child welfare and family counselling.
Family, social network, kinship foster homes and foster homes, such as; the foster care system, different family structures and practices, the relationship between public and private sphere, mobilization of family and networks, experiences and effects of different foster homes with regard to public and with relatives.
Family counseling, such as; mandatory family mediation with particular emphasis on listening to children in mediation after parental break up, mediation in high-conflict cases. Cooperation between family counselling, child welfare and the courts.
Children and young people's participation, such as; children and young people as actors in child welfare, in family counseling, family mediation and mediation and in high conflict contexts.
