Research project Sustainable professional development in the social services – co-production of knowledge for person-centered social work in the City of Stockholm
How can collaboration between academia and social services strengthen long-term competence development? This is a collaborative grant project between the Department of Social Work, Stockholm University and the Social Services Department, City of Stockholm funded by Forte within Applied welfare research – sustainable social services 2026.
The Social Services in the City of Stockholm face extensive staffing and skills challenges at a time when users' needs are becoming increasingly complex and the new Social Services Act places increased demands on accessibility, preventative work, and service delivery founded on scientific evidence and proven experience. Simultaneously, today's structures for professional development are characterized by fragmentation, an uneven training offering between city districts, and a strong focus on newly graduated social workers, while targeted professional development for experienced social workers is largely missing. These shortcomings impede the ability to recruit and retain experienced staff, develop team-based working methods, and use operational data for follow-up, knowledge, and operational development, which in turn affects the possibilities of offering individual-centered and sustainable social work.
The proposed project aims to strengthen the prerequisites for long-term collaboration between the City of Stockholm and Stockholm University with the purpose of developing sustainable structures for competence development in the social services. Through a combination of survey studies, interviews, workshops, and user dialogues, the project will map the competence needs of experienced social workers and identify organizational obstacles to knowledge-based work and research collaboration. In close co-production between academia, practice, and user councils, the project will further develop models for systematic competence planning and design courses at master’s level that respond to the needs arising in a social service system of increasing complexity.
The project's expected results include an analysis of central competence needs, a model for structured and long-term competence development, as well as proposals for training initiatives and collaboration structures that strengthen the social services' capacity to work knowledge-based and individual-centered. In the long term, the project is expected to contribute to increased quality in social work, improved conditions for recruiting and retaining experienced staff, and strengthened collaboration between research and practice, in line with national goals for a sustainable social service.