“Collective Professional Agency in Finnish Housing First Work”

Brief description of the project

The project had three main aims :

Aim 1. Tracing the process of collective agency formation among Finnish Housing First frontline workers to address in practice the most acute newly emerging problems in their field,

Aim 2. Identifying the extent to which sharing and discussing currently scattered advanced innovative solutions may trigger collective agency, and

Aim 3. Analyzing the locally-developed implementations and adaptations as advancements or regressions from the initial innovative solutions presented in the workshops.

Answers to the research questions corresponding to the above aims have been formulated as results of the data analyses.

 

This study shows how different interaction spaces and representational instruments can boost collective agency among homelessness practictioners and generate initiatives to experiment with and implement innovations in their work activities in collaboration with other colleagues. The analyses reveal how the different artifactual resources and discussion spaces (presentations and discussions in the workshops or the webforums) contributed to the process of formation of collective agency. On the basis of these results the development method fostered by means of the project shows great potential to be optimized for further use in the field of homelessness work and taken into consideration for possible adaptions in other fields of work.

 

These results are presented in one international journal article (British Journal of Educational Technology), a published article in Kasvatus, a chapter in a forthcoming book by Cambridge University Press, and two articles in the process of being finalized for submission:

Jokinen, E., Moberg, J., Sannino, A., Engeström, Y., Kerosuo, A. (2022). Yhteisen ammatillisen toimijuuden kehittyminen Asunto ensin -työssä TADS-prosessina. Kasvatus, 53(1), 86-94.

Jokinen, E. (draft in progress to be submitted). Experiencing and transformative agency by double stimulation in homelessness work.

Jokinen, E. & Sannino, A. (completed draft to be submitted for publication). Space of meaning – transformative agency by double stimulation in homelessness work.

Kerosuo, A. & Jokinen, E. (2023). Transformative agency and the cultivation of innovations in homelessness front-line work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Submitted.

Sannino, A., Engeström, Y. & Jokinen, E. (2021). Digital peer learning for transformative professional agency: The case of homelessness practitioners in Finland. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52, 1612–1628. DOI: 10.1111/bjet.13117

 

The Developing Homelessness Work 2021 Conference (DHW2021) was organized to mark the final phase of the project and in which the research team presented the final results of the project. 129 participants among practictioners, policy makers and scientists joined the conference from Finland and abroad.

 

The project offered to homelessness practitioners a repository for nationwide use and opportunities to generate advanced solutions to respond to the most acute new problems they are facing in their work activities. The repository has taken the form of a video library created with filmed presentations of innovative solutions by selected practitioners during the series of thematic workshops. The video library has been created to remain available also after the end of the project (List of workshop presentations in Finnish in the video library). The video library includes also 20 presentations from the DHW2021 conference by Finnish practitioners, policy makers as well as from scientists in Finland and abroad (List of conference presentations in Finnish and/or in English in the videolibrary).

 

Access to the videolibrary for those not yet registered can be granted through this link.

 

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