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Russell Turner

Senior Lecturer

Department of Social Work
Telephone
+46 31-786 15 94
Mail
russell.turner@socwork.gu.se
Visiting address
Sprängkullsgatan 25
41123 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 720
40530 Göteborg

About Russell Turner

Overview I am a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at the Department of Social Work. My main research interests are the development of alcohol and drug use and criminal behaviour, and societal responses to and interventions for these issues. I am also interested in adolescent development more generally and research on topics such as mental health and bullying. Prior to starting my PhD, I worked for around 15 years in various applied research roles within the public sector. These projects mainly looked at interventions and support for people with drug-use problems, people leaving a criminal lifestyle and/or young people leaving gangs.

Research I am currently involved in a number of research projects. My own post-doctoral studies are looking at the development of substance use and criminal behaviour in the later teenage years. Via three sub-studies, I will be exploring the causal mechanisms for differential development of substance use and/or criminal behaviour. In other words, explaining why some adolescents develop differently to others in terms of substance use and/or crime.

I am also involved in a Forte-financed project, led by Dr. Damon Barrett, School of Public Health & Community Medicine, looking at injecting drug use among legal minors in three different high-income countries. This project will explore legal minors' treatment needs and access to support and healthcare. It includes policy and legal mapping, explorative quantitative description of the sample using existing registry data, and qualitative interviews with young injectors and support practitioners.

I have also been involved in a project for Public Health Sweden on the development of bullying and mental health and their relations to disability in the teenage years.

Teaching I currently teach at undergraduate, Masters and doctorate level. I am co-leader for the Drug Misuse and Addictions course on the Social Work programme and also at Masters level. I am also co-leader for the doctorate course in the Philosophy of Social Science. I teach on Masters courses in Qualitative Methods in Psychology and quantitative methods module for the Masters in Social Work programme. I supervise undergraduate and Masters dissertations.