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Aytakin Huseynli, MSW
Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis
EMAIL: ahuseynli@wustl.edu
AREAS OF FOCUS:
Child and Family Well-being
Asset-Building Policies
Social Welfare in Oil-gas-rich countries
Social Work and Social Policy
Qualitative and Quantitative Research
I am a policy-based intervention researcher studying child and family well-being in various social, economic, and political contexts. My research agenda also includes studying social welfare in oil-and-gas-rich countries. My current projects also look at interventions for ensuring the social, economic, and emotional well-being of people affected by wars and civil unrest.
I have published in highly ranked peer-reviewed journals such as Child Abuse and Neglect, the British Journal of Social Work, Child Indicators Research, and Children and Youth Services Review. I was awarded $579,500 in research funding during my doctoral studies. Before that, I secured $2 million from the EU and Azerbaijan to lead a team to establish nationwide social services for children and families in Azerbaijan. My current funding proposals under review are for $730,000 for social-economic interventions in several countries. My teaching experience spans more than 15 years.
I serve on the Editorial Board of the journal International Social Work and International Journal of School Social Work and periodically review articles for the Global Social Welfare journal.
My dissertation proposed a new framework to study the association between the resource curse (regressive development despite massive oil & gas wealth) and child well-being. I generated a new mixed-methods dataset to test my framework. For the qualitative aspect of the dataset, I collected 65 in-depth interviews in six countries: Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. For the quantitative aspect, I merged 20 years of data from 30 sources with a sample of 200 countries. With my dissertation research, I aimed to raise the voice of underserved children in oil-gas-rich countries. One dissertation paper is published and three are under review. I plan to do similar research in the U.S. to compare states with and without oil-gas wealth in terms of child well-being.
I am a founder of the national association of social workers in Azerbaijan. I am also one of the developers of the social work profession and social work education in Azerbaijan. Before my doctoral program, I designed and advocated for child well-being policies to prevent abandonment and institutionalization of children. I established the nation’s first group home in Azerbaijan. I designed a national legislative framework for foster care, respite care, and community-based family support services. I was also UNICEF’s national and regional advisor on child protection and social work for post-Soviet countries.
Currently, I am actively involved in global social work and social development through the International Federation of Social Workers, the International Council on Social Welfare, the International Consortium on Social Development, Social Services in the Context of Conflict Network, and UNICEF.