Veronica Bergström

About me

I am a PhD candidate in Social Work at Stockholm University and part of the interdisciplinary, Forte-funded research programme Social Services’ Crime Prevention Work - Practices, Conditions and Outcomes. The programme is a collaboration between the Department of Social Work, the Department of Criminology, and the City of Stockholm, with an overall focus on how the social services function as an arena for crime prevention.

My dissertation examines how decisions on interventions, rejections, and declined support are formed within the social services’ crime prevention work with young people. By combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, I study how professional assessments, organisational conditions, and social structures shape which young people are included or excluded from preventive efforts. The dissertation thus highlights the often overlooked side of prevention - those who do not receive, or choose to decline, support.

I am a trained social worker with professional experience in child and youth welfare, focusing on participation, rights, and preventive interventions. Previously, I have worked with assessments and arrangements of contact between placed children and their parents, and as a project manager for an integration project targeting youth at risk of criminal involvement, which resulted in permanently implemented working methods.

I hold a Master’s degree in Social Work from Stockholm University (2024) and have previously worked as a research assistant in the Forte-funded project Social Climate and Victimisation in Residential Care Institutions for Children and Youth, where I contributed to the collection and analysis of survey and interview data with young people living in HVB and SiS homes.