Autumnal greetings to you all from Tampere University’s Faculty of Social Sciences!
In August, I began in my new job as the tenure track professor of social work in the Unit of Welfare Sciences. As a new and old employee, I’m settling in familiar routines, but also new challenges at this strange time when teleworking is still more the rule than the exception, and face-to-face meetings with colleagues are less common. I have a long history at Tampere University where I earned my Master of Social Sciences degree in 2001 and have worked as a teacher and researcher of social work since 2003.
Even though substance abuse and other dependencies are involved in many of the problems of social work clients, there is very little Finnish social work-related research on them. However, since the early 1990s, substance abuse and addictions have been studied by Tampere University’s social work researchers. Almost without exception, my research topics have been intertwined with the treatment of and recovery from substance abuse problems, such as in my doctoral thesis in 2010 where I compared different routes to recovery from alcoholism (treatment, peer support and spontaneous recovery). The Research Group on Treatment and Addiction (TreAdd), which I set up, builds on this tradition of substance abuse research, and focuses on the current phenomena of addictions and their treatment. The group aims to use the realistic evaluation approach to produce information for the development of treatments, which will also have practical relevance in the training of therapists. In the TreAdd research group, research focuses on the client, the worker and the treatment processes, or various combinations of these. Research on the effectiveness of treatment often requires longitudinal follow-up study designs which are typical of the studies done by my group. Methodologically, we adhere to both quantitative and qualitative research approaches, and our methodological approach can be considered eclectic, with different methods having a place even within the same study.
My research group collaborates with various actors in the field and other addiction scholars with a multidisciplinary approach in both domestic and international arenas. Our current research interests include the effectiveness of the segmentation of clients with substance use problems, the change of clients’ well-being in inpatient substance abuse treatment, the recognition and use of new practices enabled by social welfare legislation in practical social work with substance-using clients, the social consequences of gambling, as well as research on the individual differences in therapists’ effectiveness. For the first of these topics, we just received research funding from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, and my autumn will be spent launching the new project. My research interests are related to the goals of the recently established TRANSFORM research platform (Towards Effective and Equitable Welfare Services – Translating Scientific Knowledge into Improved Practices and Outcomes) and I am a member of its steering group.
My research interests are also reflected in my teaching, which focuses on the master’s and doctoral levels. For example, together with professor Atte Oksanen from social psychology, I am coordinating a multidisciplinary postgraduate seminar on addiction research, which serves as a support for scientific work and a forum for discussion. The participants include postgraduate students and doctoral alumni, but also senior researchers interested in the topic from across Finland and a wide range of disciplines.
In 2016, I completed intermediate studies in university pedagogy (60 ECTS). The studies have given me skills for research-based and reflective development of learning communities and working as a teacher. In addition to practical skills, my pedagogical background has enabled publishing in the field of higher education pedagogy. I have recently focused on e-learning, teaching technologies and assessment practices in the virtual environment, but also on the experiences of supervision of social work students during their practice placement at workplaces.
I have two almost adult sons: 19-year-old Eetu and 16-year-old Aaro. I enjoy this time when I can see them growing up and how life carries on and is gradually taking them towards a more independent life. My home in Ylöjärvi provides a place of rest and recuperation with gardening and sometimes a little tinkering. It’s also where my jogging trails are in the beautiful ridge landscapes. Jogging helps putting work worries aside. There’s an appropriate amount of rural tranquillity, but the university town pulsating next door offers an opportunity for cultural excursions, such as museums, theatres, concerts, and hockey games. Who knows, perhaps the coming years will even bring back this Tampere born girl.
Kind regards, Katja