PhD defence: Randi Semb

Randi Semb will defend her dissertation for the degree of philosophia doctor (PhD) in the programme Person-Centred Healthcare.

Read the dissertation: «Mellom idealisme og realisme: Om fremming av samfunnstilhørighet for unge voksne med samtidige rus- og psykisk helseproblemer.»

About the dissertation

Many young people are outside education and employment. It is a policy focus area to halt marginalization processes before young people become too alienated from majority society.

Many young adults in the margins of society use municipal services and service providers have a key role to play in promoting social inclusion.

This dissertation sheds light on social inclusion, by examining how efforts are made to enhance the subjective experiences of belonging to society of members of a group that are highly likely to end up outside education and work, namely young adults with concurrent mental health and alcohol/drug problems.

In order to explore this area, interviews were conducted with young adults with these problems and with professionals in the field in a relatively large municipality in Eastern Norway.

These young adults and the professionals describe many of the same challenges related to belonging to society, including how far the young adults’ understanding of reality should form a basis for promoting social inclusion.

However, young adults have different views on the extent to which their lack of opportunities to participate in society is due to unfair treatment by society.

Some of the young adults point out challenges in their understandings of reality: a lack of self-insight can make it too easy to blame others for their problems. They generally express uncertainty about what they can demand of themselves or others.

The professionals tend to assume that the young adults themselves generally need to change in order to participate in key areas of society, and that they must not have unrealistic ideas of what they can achieve.

The dissertation argues that services to promote social inclusion for young adults with mental health and alcohol/drug problems must take into account the typical characteristics of this phase of life.

Particular attention must be paid to the question of the young adults’ future opportunities. It is also argued that the question of whether the young adults or society must change should to a much greater extent be linked to discourses of discrimination and oppression.

In this context, it is recommended to increase knowledge and awareness of the barriers facing young adults with mental health and alcohol/drug problems in different areas of society.

Guidelines should be drawn up to indicate reasonable requirements for facilitation.