Hilde Anette Aamodt

Hilde Anette Aamodt is a Professor of Social Work at Oslo Metropolitan University's Faculty of Social Sciences, specializing in child welfare systems and family-centered interventions. Her institutional affiliation includes the Department of Social Work within the Service Organization and Innovation in Social Work and Child Welfare research group.

Her research focuses on qualitative analysis of child welfare investigations, care orders, parent-child contact under public care, and family centers. Key interests include:

• Systems theory applications (particularly Niklas Luhmann)
• Parental perspectives on care orders
• Cultural dimensions in contact arrangements
• Emotional care in social work practice
• Discursive constructions of risk in child welfare

Recent publications reveal a strong emphasis on Norwegian child welfare practices, with 15+ articles (2024-2025) analyzing parent-child contact dynamics, cultural biases in foster care, and systemic flaws in zero-tolerance policies. Her work consistently employs Luhmannian systems theory to deconstruct professional decision-making processes.

Award highlights:

• OsloMet Work Environment Prize (2018)

Aamodt leads three active research projects: Care Orders from Parental Perspectives, Parent-Child Contact Under Public Care, and Family Centers for Assessment. She served as editor for Fokus på familien (2019-2022) and teaches at bachelor, master, and PhD levels. Her outreach includes 61 public engagements, including policy briefings and stakeholder workshops on family-centered interventions.

She operates within the Knowledge for Practice research group, focusing on developing practice-oriented solutions for child welfare systems through collaborative projects with municipal services and national agencies.