The Social Work Routes Podcast

Heather McCalden is a multidisciplinary artist working with text, image and movement. She is a graduate of the Royal College of Art (2015) and has exhibited at Roulette Intermedium, Pierogi Gallery, National Sawdust, Testbed 1, and Seattle Symphony. In 2021 she won the Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize. The Observable Universe is her first book. https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/the-observable-universe/

Mab Segrest talks about her book, Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry from Georgia’s Milledgeville Asylum. Mab Segrest is the former Fuller-Matthai Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at Connecticut College.

Tarja Pösö, Professor in Social Work at Tampere University, Finland, has a long experience of more than 30 years in studying social work, especially child welfare, from different perspectives, with a keen interest in cross-country perspectives and exploring methods and ethics for child welfare studies. Her work has been published in national and international journals and books. One issue that has troubled her through the years is how to talk about child welfare in Finland in English so that the English language would not change too abruptly the terms and rationales used by Finnish legislation, policy, and practice. This is not, self-evidently, only an issue for translation but for any communication across countries, systems, and practices.

Harry Lunabba is a University lecturer in social work and a youth researcher at the University of Helsinki. In his research he has mainly focused on studies on young masculinities. His latest article analyses how to recognise young masculinities vulnerabilities in youth work.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/11033088231179552

Minna Zechner is an Associate Professor in Social Work at the University of Helsinki. Her speciality area is health and social services. Her educational background is in social policy, both Master and Doctoral degrees are from the University of Tampere, Finland. For eight years she worked in a University of Applied Sciences in Seinäjoki, then moved on to the University of Lapland from where she moved to the University of Helsinki.

Her research has mainly been focusing on older adults. PhD focused on informal care, including transnational care, trust in services, care trajectories and care experiences of older adults in need of care. Since then, she has studied for example care services, policies, governance, marketisation and financialization of care, including comparisons. Lately she has been developing also care theories, including the 2022 published book on ailment (https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/display/book/9781447343486/9781447343486.xml). After joining the social work discipline she has been also focusing on gerontological social work and ageing in the margins, for example care when the resources are scant or substance abuse of older adults.

She is Associate Editor at the International Journal of Care and Caring, a member of the Editorial Board of SpringerBrief Advancing Social Work and Social Work Education series and a member of Vaiva-collective which consist of seven care researchers across Finland. She is also a national representative of the Board of the International Association of Schools of Social Work.

Her activities and publications are found here: https://minnazechner.com/ and https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/minna-maija-zechner

Tobias Pötzsch, Ph.D, works as a lecturer in Social Work at the University of Helsinki’s Swedish School of Social Science. My doctoral dissertation; Critical Perspectives on Social inclusion in Integration Education Programs for Adult Migrants (2020) explored inclusion strategies through the lenses of anti-oppressive practices, critical whiteness studies, and critical migration studies in Finland and Canada. In Finland, the focus was on the implementation of Swedish-language integration programs.

I was born in East Germany, grew up in Canada, and have since 1997 been living in Finland, where I integrated myself in Swedish I have obtained a doctoral degree (PhD.) in Social Sciences (Social Work) from the University of Helsinki and degrees in Social Work (M.Sc.) at Gothenburg University, in Sweden and Education (B.Ed.) from the University of Alberta, Canada. I also work as a researcher at CEREN, the Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism. My areas of expertise include social work theory and ethics, multicultural/anti-oppressive/anti-racist social work, multicultural client counseling and qualitative research methods.

Internationally, I have worked in various EU Erasmus, EU Leonardo, and EU Tempus/Tacis projects that engaged students, teachers, and researchers from a variety of disciplines. The projects centered on topics of youth marginalization (Yari) as well as curriculum development initiatives with Donetsk State University in Ukraine. Furthermore, it has been my privilege to hold guest lectures, courses, and keynotes at several international universities (e.g. Georg-August University, Göttingen, the University of Gothenburg, University of Arizona, USA., VIA University College, Århus, Hogeschool Ghent & Bradford College, a. o.). As my own personal background and history are characterized by cultural and linguistic diversity and multi-nationality, international perspectives have always resonated deeply within me and distinctly shaped my vision of social work

Stanley Witkin is Emeritus Professor of Social Work at the University of Vermont, USA and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. USA. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and an honorary doctorate from the University of Lapland, Finland.

He is the co-founder (with Dennis Saleebey) and current president of the Global Partnership for Transformative Social Work (www.gptsw.net), an organization that uses social constructionist and related dialogues to explore ways of enriching relationships that support the generation of just and sustainable futures.

In addition to numerous journal publications and book chapters, his most recent books include:
Finding Lenny: A Novel. (2022). Barringer Publishers.
Transforming Social Work: Social Constructionist Perspectives on Contemporary and Enduring Issues, (2017) Palgrave MacMillan.
Narrating Social Work Through Autoethnography (2014) Columbia University Press.
Social Construction and Social Work Practice: Interpretations and Innovations (2011) Columbia University Press.

Presently, Stanley lives in Virginia, USA with his spouse, Frannie, and their precocious dog, Pekoe.

Harjeet Badwall is an Associate Professor at York University’s School of Social Work in Toronto, Canada.  Her areas of research focus on disrupting racism, whiteness, and colonialism in Social Work. Harjeet teaches core theory and practice courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels of the program. Her areas of focus include racialized and gender-based violence,  practice and theory connections, and an interlocking analysis of oppression. Harjeet worked in the anti-violence sector as a  counselor, community organizer, and activist for over twenty years.  Presently, Harjeet provides psychotherapy services in the Greater Toronto Area, including counseling, clinical supervision, and case consultations. She also provides workshops and training on anti-racism and Narrative Therapy.

Susan was born and raised in Fresno, California, USA, to refugee parents of Hmong descent.  She received her Bachelor of Social Work from California State University, Fresno, and her Master of Public Administration with a specialization in Organizational Leadership from National University.  Susan is the founder and CEO of A Hopeful Encounter, Inc., a CBO (community-based organization) serving Southeast Asian youths and their families in Fresno and Southeast Asia.  Susan currently serves on the:

Executive Board of Central Valley Regional Center as the Vice President,  
Fresno County Board of Behavioral Health as a Board member, 
Fresno County Commission of the Status of Women, and 
Advisory Council for the Humanics Program at California State University, Fresno.
Education Chair for the Xiong of Fresno County and 
a Board member of the Xiong United National Council.  

Susan is passionate about cultivating and uplifting the next generation of leaders.  In her personal and professional development journey, Susan is a Certified Trauma-Informed and Trauma Supportive Trainer and a certified Trauma Practitioner.  Lastly, Susan continually supports youths in her role as a Wisdom Coach.

Marjaana Jauhola (she/they) is an ethnographer at the intersection of international politics, development, peace and conflict, and feminism. With life's historical and visual methods Marjaana focuses on global politics of post-conflict/disaster reconstruction and gendered and sexualized notions of piety, good life, and better futures. Currently at the University of Helsinki, but soon joining the Tampere Peace Research Institute at the University of Tampere.

 Born in the capital of Finland Helsinki, she has lived half of her life in the smaller paper and pulp industry-driven towns of Kajaani and Jyväskylä, the post-mining industrial Welsh town Aberystwyth where she completed her Ph.D. in International Politics. After completing her first degree in sociology and before rejoining the academy for Ph.D. and research career, Marjaana worked for a decade in different development and humanitarian aid organizations. These experiences led her to conduct research on the global politics of gender in the aftermath of disasters and armed conflicts/political violence.

Visit her visual portfolio Scraps of Hope (https://scrapsofhope.fi/) or Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/scrapsofhopeurbanethnographies/) for more details. Her latest book with embedded videos can be read here: https://hup.fi/site/books/m/10.33134/pro-et-contra-1/