معرفی
Laura Kalliomaa-Puha is a Professor of Social Law at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Welfare Sciences at Tampere University (TUNI). Her work focuses on the intersection of law, social welfare, and human rights, with particular attention to vulnerable populations including elderly individuals, children, and those with language barriers or cognitive impairments.
Dr. Kalliomaa-Puha's research interests span multiple critical areas of social law:
- Social Rights and Access to Justice: Examining how individuals, particularly vulnerable populations, can effectively access their legal rights within complex social security systems
- Visual Legal Communication: Pioneering the use of comic book contracts and visual documents to make legal information more accessible
- Gerontological Law: Investigating legal frameworks for elderly care, particularly during crisis situations like the COVID-19 pandemic
- International Social Law: Analyzing cross-border social security challenges and solutions
- Contractualization of Social Services: Studying the implications of treating social security through contracts, service vouchers, and consumer frameworks
Her recent publications reveal several significant trends in social law research. There's a strong emphasis on pandemic impacts on vulnerable populations, particularly in long-term care facilities, where ethical tensions between protection and autonomy have been exposed. Another major trend is the visual transformation of legal documents, with her groundbreaking work on comic book contracts improving accessibility for those with language barriers or cognitive challenges. Her research also consistently addresses systemic challenges in social security, examining how new organizational models affect rights realization, particularly for fragile populations.
Dr. Kalliomaa-Puha actively contributes to policy development through multiple positions of trust:
- Human Rights Delegation
- Scientific Council of the Municipal Development Foundation
- Board of Directors of the Finnish Association of Carers
She leads several significant research projects including 'Agreed care' which examines informal care agreements, 'From words to pictures' investigating document accessibility, 'Graphic justice WELGO Health Crisis Management,' and research on 'Corona on the margins of society' and 'Basic social and human rights in social security reform.'
