Research initiative to strengthen collaboration in health and social work

Mats Ekendahl, Eva Samuelsson and their colleagues bring knowledge to the frontline through the FUSS project. Photo: Madeleine Bäckman

“What’s exciting is that so many different parties are involved – but that is also the challenge. There are a lot of meetings, but it’s been very rewarding,” says Eva Samuelsson, Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at Stockholm University.

Together with other colleagues and programme director Professor Mats Ekendahl, Professor of Social Work at Stockholm University, she leads the research effort, where one of the central aims is to build long-term relationships with practice.

“We don’t need to seek legitimacy – it comes with the territory, because there’s a clear demand from practice,” says Mats Ekendahl, adding:

“The practitioners we’ve met have expressed frustration over previously being overlooked. The fact that we now step in and listen is seen as important.”

A pilot project that sparked engagement

A pilot study was recently carried out in the Enskede-Årsta-Vantör district administration in the City of Stockholm, where social services participated in testing data collection concerning clients with substance use problems. Tobias Nilsson, Head of Division, is positive about the collaboration:

“We were immediately interested when the researchers presented the project. The pilot phase went very smoothly, and our caseworkers found it both enjoyable and meaningful to be interviewed,” he says.

“It feels professional and serious. There’s a sense of pride among staff about being involved.”

He also sees several benefits for the City:

“We’ve just received a new Social Services Act with greater demands for knowledge-based work and need better insight into the outcomes of our interventions. Here, we hope to gain tools that make us smarter and more precise in how we use our resources.”

The challenge of collaboration

A central aspect of FUSS is the collaboration between different societal actors – social services, psychiatry, addiction care, criminal justice – and how this works in practice. Here, major organizational obstacles often arise.

“The way things are organized today makes genuine cross-professional collaboration difficult. The necessary conditions are often missing,” says Eva Samuelsson.

“Guidelines say we should work together, but there is a lack of time and structures for it in everyday practice.”

Tobias Nilsson confirms this picture:

“We have different missions and objectives across services, so collaboration is easier said than done. We do have models like SIP (Coordinated Individual Plan) and coordinator roles that work well, but we need to do better.”

Striving for better follow-up

The researchers emphazise that FUSS is not a control project, but rather an inquiry into how the system works from multiple perspectives – including that of service users.

“We’re not here to say what’s right or wrong. We want to understand how things actually function,” says Mats Ekendahl.

“There are several ‘realities’ that coexist – guidelines, science, everyday work. They’re often difficult to reconcile, but all are important.”

Eva Samuelsson adds:

“There’s no systematic way today to follow up on client outcomes. We hope our research can be a starting point for better follow-up. But it’s equally vital to complement register data with interviews with service users – who is the person behind the numbers?”

Tobias Nilsson also looks forward to this:

“We haven’t had tools to monitor long-term outcomes. This programme can help us gain better oversight and develop our methods.”

For Mats Ekendahl, the research is also about breaking with outdated perspectives:

“We want to approach substance use like any other human issue. It’s not about control – it’s about people. Many practitioners want to work like this, but they are guided by policies and regulations that point elsewhere.”

FUSS thus represents an important step towards more long-term and in-depth collaboration between academia and practice. According to Mats Ekendahl, the programme is seen as the beginning of something larger, with the potential to create new forms of collaboration.

“For us, this isn’t just a side project. It’s a platform for something long-term,” he says.

The City of Stockholm also sees the value of strengthening systematic learning:

“We need to get better at collecting knowledge in a structured way. We work with taxpayers’ money and must use it wisely. That also means stop doing things that don’t work,” says Tobias Nilsson.

Learn more about the FUSS project.

Are you a researcher at Stockholm University and want to know more about how you can collaborate?

The Office for Research, engagement and innovation services is responsible for the university’s central engagement agreements and can help you find the right level for your collaboration – whether with a company, a public authority, an organisation, or in another form.

Read more here. 

Written by: Madeleine Bäckman