Kristina Bakke Åkerblom

Field of work

Kristina Bakke Åkerblom is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Welfare and Participation. She is connected to the Ph.D. program RESINNREG (Responsible innovation and regional development). 

The Ph.D. project looks at the integration of people with lived experience of mental health challenges as peer workers as a social innovation in mental health and substance use services. Engaging people with former experiences as patients and service users as peer workers are perceived as a valuable source of increasing mental health systems responsiveness to service users’ needs and goals. Previous research has looked at how peer workers are essential to have within the service, but how their entrance transforms and changes services as a social innovation through co-creation is underexplored and necessary for developing these public services with user perspectives at heart.

The Dam Foundation funds the Ph.D. study.