Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) is one of the largest of its kind in Germany. Close ties with prospective employers and relevant industries guarantee a curriculum that reflects current developments in the field. HAW offers 42 Bachelor’s degree courses, 32 Master’s degree courses, in fields such as Public Health, Social Work, Nursing and a number of Engineering related subjects. There are nearly 17,000 students, with around 2300 foreign students from over 100 nations.
The MEGA team at HAW is made up of two longstanding colleagues working alongside one another in the Department of Social Work. Gunter Groen, a psychologist and psychotherapist for adults, adolescents and children, holds a professorship of Psychology (clinical psychology and child psychotherapy) since 2010. His main teaching emphasis is on Clinical Psychology/Psychiatry and Developmental Psychology. As a qualified and licensed psychotherapist, he has longstanding experience in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy with children, adolescents, adults and families. He worked for several years as a therapist in a child and adolescent psychiatry clinic and in private practice. He has published a number of psychotherapy guidelines and intervention material, especially for depression in children and adolescents, that combines a science-based approach to the understanding of mental (ill) health with an emphasis on the meaning of recovery and a person-first approach. He has extensive research experience regarding the promotion of child and adolescent mental health in youth welfare services and clinical child psychology (e.g. integrated services for children with challenging behavioural and emotional problems; interprofessional collaboration between child psychiatry and youth welfare services; prevention of anxiety disorders; prevalence of mental disorders in adolescence, prevention of depressive disorders in adolescence, use of ‘suicide internet forums’ and pathways to mental health care for refugees).
Astrid Jörns-Presentati has been a researcher and lecturer at the Department of Social Work since 2013. Before she joined the HAW, she pursued a bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the University of Manchester and did her postgraduate studies in the Social Work Master’s program at the HAW. Her fields of expertise in teaching include undergraduate courses in developmental psychology, an interprofessional collaboration between mental health and child and youth welfare services and Recovery-oriented approaches in mental health. She has worked in a number of national and international research projects that focused on interprofessional collaboration between social work and child and youth psychiatry/psychotherapy and is currently pursuing her doctoral thesis with the same emphasis.
In the MEGA project, we are responsible for developing, piloting and conducting the train-the-trainer course for primary health care workers. Furthermore, we are responsible for monitoring ongoing activities in regard to a quality plan specifically developed for the MEGA project.
