Participation in school, working life and treatment

Approximately 700,000 Norwegians are out of work, and every third student in upper secondary school does not complete within the normative time. In 2016, 86,000 young people in Norway were neither working, studying nor participating in other measures.

Research has shown that participation in regular school and working life can reduce physical and mental symptoms, contribute to better routines in everyday life, and contribute to a feeling of worth. Our research contributes to solving major participation challenges in Norwegian society.

Societal participation is often a source of daily personal mastery. For people with participation challenges, attaining such personal mastery involves the development of services that make it possible to participate in parallel with treatment and based on the individual needs.

Service innovation and practical implementation is central to our research and provide a concrete and useful added value to society. We also emphasize user participation in our research through researching individual participation in treatment and programs.

Our research is often anchored in  co-production of knowledge together with users and health and welfare services. The group has a strong, interdisciplinary note and our researchers represent a the various disciplines in health sciences, from public health, school health and occupational health, to general health, somatic health and mental health and intoxication. Stavanger University Hospital, Presenter-Making Sense of Science and the University of Stavanger are included as equal partners in the research.