Social work

Social work is a discipline, profession and practice aimed at transforming oppressive social conditions and enhancing wellbeing and healthy relationships. Social work promotes human rights, social, economic, racial, gender and environmental justice and seeks to challenge the structural conditions that contribute to marginalisation and social exclusion. Social work engages with people and systems through public welfare institutions as well as voluntary and service users’ organisations. It develops research-based knowledge for sustainable welfare.

Social work education, practice and research draw from the ethical principles of social work.

Research profile

The discipline of social work at the University of Helsinki is a multilingual research environment for critical and creative research and pedagogy. It builds on national and international collaboration with universities and stakeholders in the Nordic countries and across the world.

A specific emphasis of the discipline is practice research which incorporates the development of social services, producing new knowledge and supporting robust academic teaching. Practice research produces knowledge and methodological skills that benefit society and have practical relevance for work in the social services sector by creating research processes that combine research, social work practical expertise and service user involvement and collaboration. Located within the discipline of social work at the University of Helsinki, Helsinki Practice Research Centre (HPRC) aims to produce practice relevant social work research together with various stakeholders and to support the use of research in practice.

Currently research in the discipline focuses on themes such as

the Finnish social and healthcare reform and its implementation
social work documentation
treatment barriers to social and health care services
social work with substance users
the provision of services for children, youth and families
mental health among youth
migration and families
intersectionality
multi-lingual practices in social work
anti-racist and decolonial social work
gerontological social work
financial social work
structural social work
urban social work
post-anthropocentric social work
arts-based approaches in social work practice, education and research.

Research projects

Below you can find a collection of ongoing research projects in which members of social work staff are currently doing research.

All research projects, including finished projects, can be found in the research portal. There you can also find information on publications and other activities.