Areas of expertise
Biography
I have worked as a university teacher and doctoral student of social work in the Department of Social Recearch, University of Turku, during 2011-2015 and again from February 2021. In between I worked in child protection as social worker and head of a child protection agency in Keski-Uudenmaan sote -kuntayhtymä (Järvenpää). I have also experience from social work in health care (Turku university hospital) and in rehabilitation (Kuntoutuskeskus Petrea). Currently I am working in three research projects:
RADAR: RADAR -Register Data Analysis for Addressing Homelessness and Reducing it - Y-Säätiö (ysaatio.fi), funded by The Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland (Ara).
HACL: Exploring homelessness among young care leavers: Addressing challenges and finding potentials in a Nordic welfare context (HACL) | NordForsk, funded by Nordforsk.
ASKE: Asunnottomuuden polut Turun seudulla– murroksista kohti sosiaalista, terveydellistä, taloudellista ja teknologista kestävyyttä, funded by Turku Urban research programme.
In spring 2024 I also teach as a university teacher of social work. During the second half of the year 2024 I will finish my PhD project, funded by a finishing grant from Alfred Kordelin Foundation.
I am a member of the steering group of the Cultural Interaction Researcher Network KULTVA (University of Turku, Department of Social Research) and a member of the Finnish National University Network for Social work (Sosnet) international working group. I also work part'time as the secretaire of the Finnish associstion of social work research, and as an expert member of child protection in Turku administrative court.
Teaching
In spring 2024 I teach in the following courses: Child protection (SOSNET), qualitative methods (Master's studies) and communication skills in the practice cources. I am also one of the study councellors in social work.
During 2022 - 2023 worked as a researcher and only thought professional ethics in the open university of Turku.
In spring and autumn 2021 I taught in the following courses:
- The multiprofessional teaching clinic of social work, logopedia and psychology (spring)- Values and ethics in social work- Monelle - interdisciplinary professionalism expertise in customer treatment and rehabilitation- Social work internship I and II- Quantitative research methods I and IIDuring 2011-2015 I taught in different methodogical courses (introduction to social research, qualitative methods), supervised bachelor's thesis seminars and had some lectures in social work courses related to drug and mental health problems and homelessness.
Research
I am working on an article-based Ph.D. thesis on homelessness.
The first article in my Ph.D. is a content analysis of all 121 systematic reviews on homelessness published up to April 2021. The article shows that compared to the social scientific understanding of homelessness, the picture that the reviews collectively present of the phenomenon is narrow, individualistic, and health-centered. The increasing demand for and the use of such systematic reviews among central homelessness practitioners, and its implications, is discussed. This article is not yet published, but already won the Bengt Turner Award, the second runner-up -position, in European Network for Housing Research Conference 9/2021.
In the second article (Niemi & Ahola 2017) we analyzed the pathways between housing and homelessness of young income support recipients in Helsinki. The administrative data used in this study was unique in the international context. It was created by joining together the register of the income support recipients in Helsinki and the register of Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela) focusing on different financial benefits. The results described the pathways of young homeless between different forms of housing and homelessness, identified subgroups of the homeless based on duration and periodical nature of homelessness, and analyzed the differences between these subgroups as regards transitions into and out of homelessness and psycho-social factors.
The last article will be published as part of the SEGRA research project. The project focuses on the role of social work in combating regional inequality, segregation, and homelessness in large and developing Finnish cities within the specific framework of housing social work. The aim is to make visible and strengthen the position of social work in the housing and related service pathways of the most vulnerable people and thereby contribute to the construction of socially sustainable cities. My focus in the project is the methodologically quantitative part in which we develop and implement new ways of analyzing the housing pathways that lead to homelessness, especially from the perspective of service avenues, and locates the role of housing social work in these routes.