Sylwia Koziel

I completed my PhD in 2011 at Technische Universität Dortmund with a dissertation on the transition to parenthood and parental support in Germany. My thesis focused on the user perspective, and in the study, I problematise the gap between professionally and politically defined support needs on the one hand and users' support needs and experiences on the other hand. Since 2011, I have been a senior lecturer in social work at Södertörn University. My main areas of research concern child welfare issues. I am interested in children's rights in social work practice, practice-oriented research and social work from an international comparative perspective. In my research, I analyse discourses on the child perspective and professional challenges related to working with children's participation in both social services and voluntary organisations. I also conduct research on children’s help-seeking strategies and children's experiences of child welfare interventions. In one study, I examined children's participation in the transition from child welfare investigations to open care services. In a current study, I am working with colleagues to examine children's help-seeking from different perspectives. I am interested in co-creative methods, knowledge transfer between research, practice and education, and higher education pedagogy issues. Methodologically, I work mainly with qualitative methods and have a particular interest in child interviews and co-creative participatory methods.

Key research areas

• child welfare and professional challenges
• children's rights and children's experiences of child welfare investigations
• practice-oriented research, co-creative and participatory methods
• social work in an international comparative perspective

Ongoing research projects

• Children's help-seeking when exposed to adverse childhood experiences
  
  Since April 2024, I have been participating in the FORTE-funded research project where we investigate the conditions for children’s help-seeking from different perspectives: through a questionnaire with schoolchildren (sub-study 1), an interview study with young adults who have their own experiences of seeking help during childhood (sub-study 2) and interviews with professionals who meet children (sub-study 3).
  
  In collaboration with social services and a reference group, we are also exploring how the research results can be used in practice to strengthen vulnerable children's opportunities for help and support (sub-study 4).
  I am the research leader for sub-study 4, which focuses on co-creative processes for knowledge production and knowledge implementation.