Research
My areas of interest recovery and user participation in psychiatric care and support are part of a value-based research and practice derived from strength-based theories and empowerment. I received my PhD in Care Science from Dalarna University in 2019 and am now an Associate Professor in Social Work at Karlstad University. I do practice reseach and theorise in a way that can clarify processes for the target groups that the research concerns. I typically involve both practitioners and clients/patients/users in all parts of the research process (not only as respondents and informants) and I use various techniques for participatory design. Much of my work is interdisciplinary.
Ongoing research projects
I am involved in several Forte-funded projects that aim to strengthen user involvement in psychiatric and social psychiatric care and support. Many of the projects I lead/participate in are performed within the framework of a six-year Forte-funded research programme led from Umeå University: UserInvolve: Developing sustainable practices for user involvement in the field of mental health 2022-2028.
I am leading a recently launched, three-year, Forte-funded project that will study patient forums and user forums (2025-2028). In the first stage, we will map the implementation and effects of patient forums in regional psychiatric contexts, and in the second stage, we will adapt the method to municipal contexts and study implementation and effects in a number of social psychiatric services. The study is a joint production between NSPH, NSPH Skåne and Lund Municipality.
I also lead a project on Shared Decision Making in the context of SIP (Coordinated Individual Planning) (Funded by Forte and the Kamprad Foundation 2022 - 2024). In a formal sense, the project is complete, but a lot of article production remains.
I have a strong commitment to making research accessible and am currently leading two utilisation projects that are funded by Forte.
One is a co-production project where KaU and actors in the user movement collaborate on strengthening individuals as knowledge agents in the meeting with the care and support system: Epistemic (in)justice and barriers to knowledge integration: Developing a checklist and discussion material for legitimising user knowledge in the field of mental health (2022 - 2024). The project is formally complete now that the material is available, but a lot of dissemination activities remain.
The second utilisation project started in spring 2025 and is based on a recently completed three-year project that studied user focused monitoring (UFM) (quality surveys of activities led and carried out by people with user experience): Do users' opinions make a difference? A study of new forms of user influence in the field of mental health through the example of UFM (funded by Forte 2021-2024). This project will run from 2025 to 2026 and will take place in collaboration with the user movement. In the project, we will develop educational material to support the implementation of and training in user audit practices.
I also participate as a participating researcher in the project SUVEk (Systematic Follow-up in Värmland within Financial Assistance).