Working with

My name is Sara Helmersson, PhD in Social Work. I am employed as a university lecturer in social work, Department for Society and Welfare, HOV, at Halmstad University.

Research

In March 2017, I defended my dissertation at the University of Social Sciences in Lund with the monograph "Between Sisterhood and Treatment. Renegotiations in a Changed Support Field for Abused Women". The thesis sheds light on two types of support activities for women exposed to violence: women's shelters and municipal special units that work with violence in close relationships. The overall aim was to investigate the work with women who have been subjected to violence within this non-profit and municipally organized "support field" and to deepen the knowledge of internal tensions and connections between local support practices and different ways of understanding violence. The study has an ethnographically inspired design.

As a postdoc, I have devoted myself to qualitative research that relates in different ways to different forms of violence in close relationships as well as research on migration and unaccompanied youth in relation to the Swedish welfare institutions. In an ongoing project, preventive efforts against violence in social services are being investigated, and in a recently completed project, professionals' treatment of young new arrivals, not least when it comes to identifying and responding to students who have been exposed to violence and abuse.

Other

Since May 2023 I am coordinating the Kompetensplattform för samverkan om utbildning, verksamhetsutveckling och forskning inom det sociala området. For more information: https://www.hh.se/samverkan/samarbeta-med-oss/kompetensplattform-for-socialt-arbete.html