Roma Women’s Role in the Health Preservation of Their Communities during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Paula Abella has a degree in Social Work from the University of Barcelona, a Masters' degree in Prevention and treatment of family violence (minors, couples, and the elderly), and is currently enrolled in the master's degree in health social work. She has participated in research on homeless women and is currently collaborating in Spanish national RTD project Evidence-based solutions for the overcoming of COVID-19 effects on the Roma community, Roma women leading communities’ transformation (ROM21). She is collaborating with the research group Interdisciplinary Scientific Research in Social Work (RCI-TS) from the University of Barcelona and is a member of the Catalan Association of Social Work Research (ACRTS). Her research interests are Social Work, homeless women, and Roma people. She is co-author of the book ‘Homeless women in the city of Barcelona’ published by Celebre Editorial, Campus Mundet Department of Social Work and Social Services, University of Barcelona. She is also currently working as a social worker in a family care center.

Dr. Aubert is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Barcelona. She has been Chair of the Research Network of Sociology of Education of the European Sociological Association since 2021. She is also former co-Editor of the scientific review International Journal of Sociology of Education (RISE), indexed by the Web of Science and Scopus. Dr. Aubert has been involved in several European projects from H2020 and the EU Framework Programme, including SOLIDUS (H2020), in which she was a member of the Steering Committee and the leader of the WorkPackage “Solidarity in European societies: empowerment, social justice and citizenship”, and INCLUD-ED (FP6). She has been a member of the Consolidated Research Groups on Gender, Identity and Society (GRESUD), and on Sociological Theory and Impact of Research (TSIR), and now she is a member of the Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Group in Social Work (RCI-TS), all recognized by the Government of Catalonia. She has carried out research stays at Harvard University, the University of Edinburgh, and every summer since 2014 at the University of Cambridge. She has conducted extensive research and publications on learning communities, and she is a research member of the learning communities research team. Dr. Aubert has extensively investigated SEAs.

Dr. María Virginia Matulič Domandzič is Professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Services at the University of Barcelona. She has been the principal investigator of several projects that analyze the issues of female homelessness, families in a situation of homelessness, and women in a situation of homelessness and gender violence.  She is currently participating in the national R&D project that deals with the impact of COVID on the Roma community. Her publications are related to topics of homelessness, intervention methodologies, supervision and practices in social work, and social services. She has published in the magazines Affilia—Journal of Women and Social Work, European Journal of Homeless People; Frontiers in Psychology; Global Social Work and Sustainability. Her research interests are social work, homelessness, intervention methodologies, and social inclusion. She is also part of the research group Interdisciplinary Scientific Research in Social Work (RCI-TS), and is directing the team of the Postgraduate and Master's Degree in Disability of the University of Barcelona, ​​of the Trans @ net teaching Innovation Group of the UFR—School of social work, and of the of the research network on homelessness from a gender perspective (2019). She has 19 years of previous experience as a social worker in different fields (primary care, mental health, drug addiction, and immigration).

Dr. Ariadna Munté-Pascual is Professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Services at the University of Barcelona. She has been the principal investigator of several national RTD projects looking at issues such as the Roma community, successful educational actions in schools and gender-based violence. Her research interests are Social Work (health, primary care, groups, communities), Roma people, gender violence, social inclusion, educational changes, and social participation. She has published articles on these topics in journals such as Child and Family Social Work, European Journal of Women Studies, Qualitative Inquiry, Journal of Interpersonal violence, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies or AFFILIA: The Journal of Women and Social Work. She is Director of the research group Interdisciplinary Scientific Research in Social Work (RCI-TS), and she is a board member of Catalan Association of Social Work Research (ACRTS). She also has 10 years of experience as a social worker in primary social care and in Roma institutions.