seit 2013: Professorin für Sozialarbeitswissenschaft an der Hochschule Neubrandenburg

Gemeinwesenorientierte Jugendarbeit im öffentlichen Raum, Kinder- und Jugendbeteiligung, Moabiter Ratschlag e.V., Berlin

Wohnungslosen- und Straffälligenhilfe, Soziale Hilfe, Kassel:

Notschlafstelle, Tagesaufenthaltstelle, Fundraising und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit

Beratung und Betreuung von (drogenabhängigen) Prostituierten, Kassel

Mitgründerin des Mädchenhaus Kassel e.V.

Wohnungslosenhilfe, Simon Communitiy, Glasgow, Schottland

Stationäre Jugendhilfe, heilpädagogisches Kinderheim Oberotterbach e.V., Weisenheim am Sand

Housing and Homelessness

Community Work

Children’s and Youth Services

Theories and methods of Social Work

Reconstructive qualitative research

Gender/Queer Studies

Social exclusion

Classism

(Anti-)Discrimination

I have had a close involvement with the world of social work throughout my professional life.
One of my strengths is the thread running through my career which has combined practical on-the-ground social work with teaching and in-depth research into often-neglected fields of study. 

I am a social worker with national and international experience of working with homeless adults and young people, drug addicts and sex workers. Later I expanded my role into fundraising, public relations and awareness–raising activities. I was also involved in a community youth work project in public urban places such as the Alexanderplatz in Berlin. In parallel, I did a pre-doctoral course in research and scientific methodology at the University of Kassel and was awarded a scholarship to do a PhD in pedagogical sciences by the Heinrich Böll Foundations, which I studied at the University of Osnabrueck.

In 2013 I joined the University of Applied Sciences Neubrandenburg as a Professor in Social Work Sciences. Prior to that I held a position as a professor in the Theory and Methods of Social Work at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Stuttgart, having spent three years as a visiting professor at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin.

I am also a member of various professional associations. Since 2016 I have been one of the board members of the DGSA (German Society of Social Work) and am therefore closely involved in current discourses and debates on social work sciences. Within the University I also carry out managerial functions such as Head of the Master of Social Work Sciences program and chair of the antidiscrimination committee. One of the biggest challenges at the moment is the influence of the extreme right on social work, which can be observed in various European countries at different stages.
My research interests are the life worlds and experiences of marginalized social groups and users of social work such as homeless people, sexworkers, drug addicts, looking into concepts and methods of social work to help and support these groups as well as analysing processes of social exclusion and their impact on the individuals. This includes a queerfeminist and intersectional perspective, as developed in my latest study on and with LGBTIQ+ and Homelessness. Another research interest is community work with a focus on activism and participatory methods.
The accumulated professional experience and my current profile allow me to draw on real-life experiences alongside extensive academic study in the discipline of social work science. It has always been a principle of mine to take the challenges and dilemmas I have encountered in the day-to-day of practical social work and use scientific and research disciplines to try and find solutions to these issues.