SPEAKERS
Conference brings together interesting and motivating group of speakers from the field of research, advocacy and governmental institutions. We have asked them to introduce themselves. Here they are!
Pål Isdahl Solberg
Pål Isdahl Solberg is a lecturer in Youth Knowledge at The University College of Southeast Norway (USN). He is also the founder of The Participation Agency, which are active in participation- and youth work development and policy development in the Nordic and Baltic countries. He is the former secretary general of Ungdom & Fritid and President of POYWE (professional open youth work in Europe). Pål is active in the European Researcher Network of open youth work, and has worked with youth related issues in Europe for the last 15 years.
Birgitta Ander
Master of social science in social work
PhD candidate, Jönköping University, School of Health Sciences
Birgitta has 0ver 15 years’ experience of working with youth as an outreach social worker.
On leave from working as a lecturer at the Social Worker education at Jönköping University.
The working title for the dissertation is “The meaning and importance of arenas for youth binge drinking and substance use”
Maria Pedersen
Maria Pedersen is currently a PhD student, at the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Public Health and Epidemiology. Working title of her thesis is “Mechanisms of social inequality in rehabilitation attendance among patients with acute coronary syndrome – A Mixed Methods study”. She has a background in clinical nursing, but has subsequently extended her field of interest with Public Health Science. In 2013 she achieved a Master’s degree in Public Health. The aim of the thesis was to assess determinants of adolescent binge drinking in Denmark, with a focus on peer alcohol drinking, mothers’ and fathers’ attitude towards alcohol drinking, parents’ socio-economic position and the adolescents’ own financial situation (e.g., the presence of pocket money) as potential determinants of adolescent binge drinking; the title of the thesis is “Determinants of Binge Drinking among Adolescents in Denmark”
Håkan Leifman
Håkan Leifman is the director of CAN and has a PhD in sociology (1998). His main research field has been alcohol epidemiology, prevention and policy studies. He is currently one of the coordinators of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) with 35 participating countries and more than 96.000 students 15-16 years old, in sixth wave of data collection in 2015. He also is the founder of the still ongoing Monitor project, a general population monitoring study on alcohol consumption and purchases of unrecorded alcohol with 1500 interviews per month since 2001.
Håkan Fransson
Håkan Fransson is a social worker and drug prevention officer.
Responsible for drug prevention work in Öckerö Municipality since 2002.
Founder of Öckerö method, an effective prevention method now spread across Sweden.
Nijole Goštautaitė Midttun
Nijole Gostautaite Midttun is a psychiatrist and director of the nonprofit organization “Mental health initiative”. She is an active mental health advocate and her work involves research and analysis, training and organization development. She has clinical psychiatry experience in variety of settings in Lithuania and Norway, as well as additional background of health psychology and experience in developing social work programs in Lithuania. She has more than 15 years of training and teaching experience: some of the courses involve Counseling for Health, Team Work in Mental Health, and she has been teaching Health Advocacy in Vilnius University since 2009 in Erasmus Mundus program. Some of the recent projects involve development of the program for mentally ill persons “Parenting for health”, assessment of accessibility program for services for children using psychoactive substances, feasibility of mandatory treatment for dependent persons and alcohol advertisement monitoring. N.G. Midttun is closely involved in alcohol and tobacco control policy as a board member of the Lithuanian Coalition for Tobacco and Alcohol Control and has organized on behalf of NordAN the first seminar on Alcohol marketing monitoring in Vilnius in 2013.
Willy Pedersen
Willy Pedersen is professor of Sociology at The University of Oslo. He has lead research projects on smoking and nicotine dependence, alcohol, use of cannabis and the cannabis economy. His research has been published in journals such as Addiction, Sociology of Health & Illness, Social Science & Medicine, Acta Sociologica. He was one of the founders of the population-based longitudinal study Young in Norway Longitudinal. However, he has also worked with qualitative data and fieldwork, and Street Capital – black cannabis dealers in a white welfare state, Bristol – Policy Press, 2011 (with Sveinung Sandberg) presents the illegal cannabis distribution scene in down-town Oslo.
Peter Allebeck
Peter Allebeck is professor of Social Medicine at the Department of Public Health Sciences KI, and also has a position at CES, Stockholm County Council. His main area of research is Mental Health and in particular epidemiology of alcohol and substance use. Since 1 January he has a half time position as Secretary General for FORTE, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare.
Torbjørn Torsheim
Torbjørn Torsheim is a Professor of psychometrics and quantitative research methods at the University of Bergen, where he teaches in the psychology programs.
Torsheims scientific publications adress adolescent health and health behaviour, including health complaints, distress and substance use, with a particular focus on social inequality and macro influences.
Torsheim has since 1998 been an active member in the Health Behaviour In School-aged Children Study (HBSC). His main research contributions emanate from this study, where he is currently co-chair of the methodology development group.
Patrick Lie Andersen
Patrick Lie Andersen (MA Sociology) is a researcher at the Section for Youth Research at Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, and a PhD student in sociology at the University of Oslo. His research concerns social inequality, and is particularly related to living conditions among adolescents, class analysis, urban areas, education and social elites.
Catrine Torbjørnsen Halås
Catrine Torbjørnsen Halås is Associate Professor at Centre for practical knowledge, at Faculty of professional studies at Nord University. The last 8 years she has being doing research about Youth at risk. Her expertise is related to multidisciplinary work with youth at risk, participation and professional development. Earlier she has work experience as a social worker in the Social Services, Child Welfare and County Governor.
Maj-Inger Klingvall
Msc Political Science. President WOCAD since 2010. She has a political background, was Member of the Executive Committe, National Federation of Social Democratic Women in Sweden as well as Member of the Executive Committe, Swedish Social Democratic Party. She has been Local Governmental Politician in Norrköping, Member of Parliament, Chair for the Standing Committe on Social Insurance in Parliament, Minister for Social Security and Family Affairs, Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and Minister of Development Cooperation, Migration and Asylum Policy, Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Ambassador to Mocambique and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Now vice President UNICEF Sweden and Member of CAN Board.
Cees Goos
Started professional career in the mental health and addiction field as researcher on drug use among students in Holland; continued for a couple of years as a clinician in a therapeutic community and at an outpatient treatment centre; moved on to public health at the Dutch national centre for substance abuse and mental health; employed for 3 years by UNESCO at projects in Sudan and Egypt and by UNDP in Indonesia; and from there moved on to WHO (World Health Organization).
Started with WHO in 1983 as scientist psychoactive drugs at the European Regional Office, became coordinator of the unit alcohol, drugs and tobacco, and acted for 4 years as Director of the Department for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Was closely involved in the development of the European Alcohol Action Plan, the organisation of 2 European Ministerial Conferences, and initiated and lead the WHO Health in Prisons Project.
Published many articles, reports and conference papers, in particular on substance abuse, mental health and prison health.
Has been active since his retirement as public health consultant for international agencies, such as WHO (Headquarters in Geneva; the Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila, the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office in Cairo and the African Regional Office), the EC and the UNODC (United Nations Office for Drug Abuse and Crime); as consultant for FORUT, a Norwegian NGO active in developing countries in Africa and Asia; as Secretary of the European Working Group on Treatment of Alcohol Dependence (EWGTAD); as chair of the Alcohol Policy Network in Europe (APN); as chair of meetings of 2 large EC sponsored research projects; as editorial board member of some international addiction journals; and as a board member of some NGO’s in the Netherlands and the UK; served on the board of AFEW (AIDS Foundation East West in Amsterdam and Moscow) as chair; is honorary consultant at the Anton Proksch Institut and is associated with the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research in Vienna.