Addiction and the Family International Network (AFINet) Webinar Series
- brings together researchers, policy-makers and practitioners;
- promotes the well-being of family members, friends and colleagues who are affected by or concerned about another person’s problems with or addiction to alcohol, drugs or gambling; and
- develops research, policy and practice in the field.
All Webinars are recorded and those recordings are made available a few days later on the AFINet website www.afinetwork.info/webinar-series/recent-webinars. The list of past Webinars is below, beneath the programme for future ones.
Participation in each webinar is free, but to join, you MUST register beforehand. For each Webinar that you are interested in, please register in the few days before it starts, via webropol.com/s/afinetwebinar. Below the programme you can find a video recording of each Webinar that has been presented so far, along with the PowerPoint slides for that Webinar. As we are a small charity, if you can donate a small amount for each webinar, this would be really appreciated. We suggest 30Euro/Dollars or £25 Paypal takes about 5% of the payment and banks can take up to 20% so Paypal is preferable.
Payment Details – You can request an invoice – gillvelleman@gmail.com
You can either pay through the website through Paypal (click here) or pay by BACS or web transfer.
Bank: CO-OP. Name: Addiction & the Family International Ntwrk
Address: PO box 250, Delf House, Southwat, Skelmersdale WN8 6WT, uk
Sort Code: 08-92-99. A/C No: 65824603
BIC: CPBK GB22. IBAN: GB70 CPBK 0892 9965 8246 03
Future Webinars
AFINet Webinars will take place on alternate months: November, January, March, May, July, September, November and will move between Tuesday/ Wednesday/ Thursday, so people with regular commitments on one of those days will still be able to attend on the others.
There will be no Webinar in September, due to the 7th AFINet Conference (online), 15th-16th September, 2026
November Webinar
Title: Socially Distributed, Privately Managed: A social psychological investigation of gambling harm among affected others
Date: Wednesday, 11th November 2026 — 17:00 Finland / 10:00 am Eastern USA & Canada / 15:00 UK / 16:00 Western Europe
worldtimebuddy.com Note: the time in Europe is later than usual, due to the speakers’ location.
Speaker: Dr Emmi Kauppila, PhD — Emerging Technologies Lab, Tampere University, Finland
Chair: Professor Richard Velleman, University of Bath, England / Sangath, India
AFINet Treasurer and Trustee
Description: Research on affected others has documented the prevalence of gambling harm, the different forms it can take, and the support needs of those affected. Some aspects of how harm develops and is managed within close relationships remain less understood. In particular, limited research has examined how exposure to problem gambling relates to affected others’ own gambling over time. There is also a need to better understand how financial harm is managed in everyday life, particularly when coping takes place outside formal support services.
This webinar presents Emmi Kauppila’s doctoral research on gambling harm among affected others. Her research combines an eight-wave Finnish population survey with qualitative analyses of discussions from a professionally moderated online forum.
The longitudinal study examined whether exposure to problem gambling among family members or friends was associated with changes in affected others’ own gambling and whether social connectedness offered protection. The qualitative studies examined how affected others coped with financial harm, as well as how they sought (and provided) social support in an online community.
The webinar will consider what these findings tell us about the social distribution of gambling harm and the largely private work through which affected others attempt to manage it.
To Register: Registration is mandatory, please register on this link: webropol.com/s/afinetwebinar.
January Webinar
Title: The Family Support Program: helping people bereaved by drug poisoning through New York City’s Medical Examiner Office
Date: Wednesday, 20th January 2027 — 9:00 am US-Eastern / 14:00 UK / 15:00 Western Europe / 16:00 Finland / 19:30 India
worldtimebuddy.com
Speaker: Dr Karli Hochstatter, PhD, MPH – Research Scientist, Friends Research Institute, USA
Chair: Professor Ruth McGovern University of Newcastle, England and AFINet Trustee
Description:
This webinar will describe the Family Support Program (FSP): a social worker-delivered bereavement support service provided by the Drug Intelligence and Intervention Group of the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner for family, friends, and other close social network members bereaved by drug poisoning. The FSP aims to reduce grief-related distress and improve psychosocial
and AFINet Trustee functioning following loss. This webinar will describe the development and implementation of the FSP and present preliminary findings from an embedded research study that aims to examine the impact of the FSP on people bereaved by drug poisoning. Attendees will gain a comprehensive understanding of implementing responsive, trauma-informed services through medical examiner and coroner settings for individuals affected by drug poisoning loss. They will also gain knowledge on conducting research in this setting and preliminary findings on the impact of the FSP.
To Register: Registration is mandatory and the link will be availble shortly after the previous webinar has taken place.
Make A Donation
As a charitable organisation, we rely on donations to keep going. If you would like to make a donation, please add in your amount you want to donate in the box below where it says 20. This amount is in pounds so please adjust to take account of any conversions from your currency. Please be aware that Paypal takes about 5% of your fees so if you want AFINet to receive the full amount, please increase your amount- all is appreciated.
