Articles in English

Based on the results of a national survey I conducted looking at the educational placement of children living in residential care (1996) and a separate study I have done on adaptive education in alternative schools (1994) I will provide a description of current Norwegian policies and practices regarding education, alternative schools and inclusion for EBD students.
I start off this session by giving a short outline of Norways general policy on inclusion concluding that the overall policy is that all students regardless of any handicap are entitled to have their education in the local mainstream school. Through presenting the results from the national survey I intend to show that in spite of official policy more than 1/3 of these students received segregated education outside the regular schools, and more than 50% who attended mainstream schools were placed in separate settings within the school. Many of the children who received segregated education either within or outside the local school participated in alternative education. Why is this happening? Is it mainly a result of traditional “push out” strategies and henceforth a development of a new special school system in disguise, or do these alternative schools exist because they represent a genuine option to secure the education and growth for students, mainly with disruptive and disaffected behaviour, who don’t seem to make it in the ordinary schools?

Finally I also wish to include an additional perspective. In April 1998 I visited the State of Minnesota to study the education of students with EBD within a range of settings including alternative schools. I would like to conclude my session by comparing my Norwegian perspective with my recent experiences from my trip combined with the writings of John Kellmayer in “How to establish an Alternative school” (1995). I intend to compare some of his ten characteristics of American alternative schools with the Norwegian perspective. What are the similarities and differences between alternative schools in the US and Norway, especially in regards to the issue of inclusion?
My overall plan with this session is to demonstrate the ambivalence in Norwegian educational policy of inclusion in particular in regards to alternative schools and draw some interesting comparisons between the US and Norway.

In spite of official policy of inclusion of all students in the mainstream Norway allows a system of segregated education through a system of alternative schools. I argue that the main reason for this is the relative success of these alternatives in offering young people with EBD adequate education. This is documented through several studies ( Sørlie 1991, Tveit/Melbye 1994). In an inclusive perspective the main objection to the alternative schools in Norway is the fact that they are not only separated but to some extent isolated from the mainstream.

In comparison with the US I find that although your official policy towards inclusion is a dualistic one with an emphasis both on the regular schools system and the special schools system, the system of alternative schools you offer is at it best more inclusive in its practice than its Norwegian counterpart. I will try to show this by focusing on two of Kellmayers ten characteristics of effective alternative schools in the US; site and size.

Teachers and residential care workers: “They meet and talk, but do they co-operate?”
Arne Tveit, Arnt Ollestad, Norway
Rogneby Resource Centre has recently (1994-95) on behalf of the organisation of Residential Child Care (BIS), conducted a national survey on the quality of the education of children in residential child care. The project was partly funded by the Ministry of Family and Children and partly by the Ministry of Education, Research and Church affairs.
The survey was prompted by the emergence of some alarming reports about the development of compulsory education for children living in public residential care. These reports reflected concern about recent changes in responsibility for the education of these children. As of July 1992 the education of children living in residential care, is by law the responsibility of the county. For all other children compulsory education is a municipal responsibility.
37 institutions for residential care and 59 elementary and secondary schools participated in the survey. Both residential care workers and teachers were respondents. All counties in Norway were represented. A report on the results from the survey was published in January 1996. Articles have been published in Norwegian journals of special education and a journal for social and child care workers.

living in residential care under the legislation of the Children Welfare Act of 1992 often have difficulties adapting to the school system. These children are especially vulnerable since they have been removed from their home environment. This creates great challenges for institutions and schools when trying to organise care and a good learning environment. It is essential that the teachers and the residential care workers communicate during this process of adaptation. Many improvements in this area can be made, however. The main focus of this article is on the need for cooperation between the school teachers and the residential care workers. The school must consider the wishes of the parents/parental representatives (staff at the institution), and cooperate with them when planning the children’s’ education. This is often difficult because the school lacks information on when to contact and inform the biological parents and when to contact the parental representatives from the institution.The general guidelines are in the Children Welfare Act, and for each child there exists specific rulings. The residential care staff report from their point of view that they often lack adequate information from the school and therefore feel they cannot participate in the planning of the children’s education. However, the results from the survey also reveal optimistic perspectives for creating real cooperation between the staff in schools and institutions. Both parts stress the necessity for improving the cooperation. They have established routines for meetings and cooperation. Furthermore, both teachers and residential care workers clearly stated that social workers ought to work in schools. In Norway there is a long tradition of teachers as the sole profession working in schools.

Children living in residential care have experienced great changes in their lives. They have been removed from their parents, often due to lack of parental care, serious difficulties in their relations with their parents, or problems connected with their own behaviour. Removal from their parents often lead to a shift of schools. In our survey 68.3% of the children had started in a new school when they moved into residential care. The study shows that the children experienced simultaneous break-ups from two important areas of socialisation (family and school). In addition to this, before being placed in institutions, the children often suffered from lack of cooperation between adults at home, in school and in the support services/agencies. Working with these children requires extensive collaboration between these institutions. Interdisciplinary cooperation and co-ordination of services is therefore crucial in order to improve the children’s’ situation.

Children in residential care have behavioural and emotional difficulties in school
The school is an important area for children. Its influence on the development of the child is clearly documented in re-search literature (Cooper, Smith & Upton, 1994). To succeed in school indicates to which degree the child succeeds in other important areas in life, including life in the institution. Not surprisingly, the survey indicates that children in residential care have behaviour and emotional difficulties in the school. Only 11.8% of the children are reported to have no emotional and behavioural difficulties, while 35.9% are said to have severe difficulties. A discussion of how to improve these children’s life in school must include an understanding of the causes of the difficulties. In our opinion the following two models offer an explanation:
1) connecting the difficulties to disturbances «inside» the children, 2) connecting the difficulties to the children’s’ interaction with the environment. These two explanations reflect the main distinctions we find in the literature (Farrel 1995).
The first model relates the difficulties to emotional damages suffered by the child due to abuse and other traumatic experiences in the childhood. As a result of this, it seems very hard for the child to adjust to school. According to this point of view, there is no sense in looking for problems in the organisation of the schools and in other support services. The problems lie in the child’s intra-psychic life.

The second model, on the other hand, is more concerned with the child’s interaction with the environment. According to this model changes in e.g. the school systems and in the child’s relations can lead to an improvement in the child’s social and emotional life.

The material from our study indicates that the staff in residential care tend to support the latter explanation, while the teachers do so to a lesser extent. The teachers view the quality of the education provided for children in residential care as better than the residential care workers. It is hard, however, to say how these different views influence the quality of cooperation between the professions and thereby the quality of the life of the children. However, it is decisive for the planning and consequently the quality of the education, that those who do the planning not only ensure cooperation within the support system, but also see the possibilities for change within the system and recognise the potential in every child.

The responsibility of the institution in relation to education
Every child has, according to «Grunn-skoleloven» (the Educational Law of Norway), a right to receive an education adapted to their own skills and abilities. The law clearly states who has the responsibility for providing this education. For children aged 7-15, it is a municipal responsibility. For the children in residential care, however, it is the county government who has the responsibility. Furthermore, official educational policy requires that all children, regardless of educational needs, are given their compulsory education in the local mainstream school on an inclusive basis.

The staff in the institutions usually represent the parents in school matters, either due to a formalised agreement between the local child welfare authorities and the biological parents, or because the parental responsibility has been taken away from the biological parents voluntarily or by court decision. It is therefore important for the staff in the institutions to know the Law of Education. Together with «Forvaltningsloven» (the Law of Administration) these laws state that the parents/parental representatives have both a right to express their opinion in educational matters and are partly responsible for the child’s education. The parental responsibility is emphasised even stronger in Parliamentary Report NR. 29, (1994-95) (NOU 1995:18 - The proposal for a new Law of Education), where it is stated that the parents/parental representatives have the main responsibility both for the upbringing as well as the education of their own children. This strengthens the responsibility of the institutions and schools to have close connections in educational planning. To ensure that residential staff, and/or the biological parents, contribute in the planning is therefore a joint responsibility for all parts involved, the schools and the institutions as well as the support services.

The routines of cooperation are established, but don’t seem to indicate real cooperation.
The survey indicates that different routines of cooperation have been established between the schools and the institutions. According to our study such routines existed for almost 90% of our sample. Furthermore, educational matters were amongst the subjects at 70% of the meetings where teachers and residential staff were present. However, the survey also indicates that these meetings didn’t lead to real influence for the staff from the institutions in connection with the children’s’ education. The cooperation seems to be formalised around routine working tasks. The school seems to have a one-sided responsibility for planning the education, and informing the institution rather than discussing with them. This is clearly shown in connection with the planning of the children’s’ individual educational plan . The staff in the institutions only participated in this individual planning for half the children in the survey who received special education. It is therefore obvious that many schools planned the education without the required contribution and confirmation from the institutions. This is underlined by the fact that the residential child care workers expressed a wish to increase their influence in the planning for 48.3% of the children who attended ordinary schools.

On the other hand the study shows that the teachers experienced a lack of information from the institutions for over 40% of the children. They lacked background information about the children, previous school records and information about who they were obliged to inform on different matters. The level of cooperation may therefore be described to having established good routines and models, but that the content of the cooperation was insufficient.

The residential child care worker represents in many ways an unknown parental group for the schools. On both sides there probably exists uncertainty. The schools wonder who they should relate to as parental representative. This confusion is highlighted when for example the school doesn’t know the content of the joint agreement between the local child welfare office and the biological parents, leading to misunderstandings and uncertainty between the two professions.

In conclusion the staff in the institutions want more influence in the planning of education, while the teachers want more information from the institutions. But it is unclear how much they are willing to contribute. For the child, the lack of cooperation, is a negative situation.

Both teachers and residential care workers want to include the social workers as members of the school staff
As earlier mentioned many factors contribute to this lack of cooperation between schools and institutions, but these patterns can be changed and improved upon. We have already mentioned that the structure and routines for cooperation exist, but they are not being well used. In addition, the survey shows, that both schools and institutions want social workers present in schools. This viewpoint is supported by the ideas presented in a Parliamentary Report NR. 29 (1994-95). This report clearly states the necessity of having different professions working together in the schools - not only the teachers. This is especially the case in regards to the education of exceptional children with special needs.

We believe a broad representation of professions in school will positively influence the development of a real cooperation between schools and institutions, as they learn mutual respect for each others professional skills. However, in order for this cooperation to be successful, clear role definitions are necessary.

Children living in residential care have as we mentioned earlier been moved away from two important areas of socialisation, home and school. Because of that they must establish relations on new arenas. This requires a well organised and consistent helping system around the children - with clearly defined routines and strategies to help the children through a period of transition.

The survey indicates that currently, the school and the institution need to improve and extend their cooperation on educational matters. In view of the children’ needs, this matter calls for full attention.
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References

Cooper, P., Smith, C. J. and Upton, G. (1994). Emotional and behavioural
difficulties. Theory to practice. London: Routledge.
Farrell, P. (1995). Emotional and behavioural difficulties, causes, definition and assessment. In: P. Farell (ed.): Children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Strategies for
assessment and intervention. London: The Falmer Press.
Ollestad, A. and Tveit,A. (1996). Barnevernsbarna - en segregert gruppe i skolen. Prosjektrapport, Rogneby kompetansesenter.
NOU 1995:18 Ny lovgivning om opplæring.

In recent years, extensive work has been done on increasing the competence of professionals within the fields of child welfare work, the school systems and kindergartens. This is a commitment which is generally accepted as necessary. In this article, we would like, firstly, to call attention to some central factors which motivate such commitment; secondly, to focus on a method of supervision based on the personal experience of the individual professional. Through our own experience in connection with the development of the competence of teachers and social workers employed in child welfare work, we have found that supervision connected with personal experience is the most efficient approach to use. Such supervision may give the professional teacher and social worker the support they need in a strenuous job, and may increase their knowledge as well as their practical teaching or therapeutic skill. In our view, it is a paradox that teachers, who culturally and traditionally work alone with pupils in classes , only in a very modest degree receive professional advice and feedback from other professionals or colleagues.

Different professions employed in the public task of helping children and young people in Norway, have one challenge in common: Education[1]. We live in a society which is changing radically as far as productivity, demography and organisation are concerned. These are changes of great consequences for the family system and for the tasks and responsibilities of the public welfare and educational institutions. The Danish social psychologist, Per Schulz Jorgensen (1998), underlines the fact that, in our time, the family has largely been given the role of representing the framework of the lives and identity projects of the individual outside the family. He sketches a development from 'family-ism' to 'individual-ism'. The considerable stress which our post-modern society puts on individualism and the pursuit of individual happiness contributes to a description of a society at risk where an increasing number of children and adolescents are marginalised in regards to education, the job market and a wholesome life in the community.

The family has for a long time been under tough pressure in the task of fulfilling the function presupposed by our tradition and cultural heritage. The school and the support system have over the last decades had to compensate to a great extent for many of the family functions in regards to the care and education of the young. In the last few years we have however seen another trend. New compensating tasks and strategies, like Parent Management Training (PMT), Marte Meo, Multi Systemic Therapy (MST) and Family First, that focus on trying to restore the importance of the family are being tried out on a large scale in several countries including Norway. Likewise, there are new methods and programmes , like 'Second Step', undertaken in kindergartens and schools concerning the learning of social skills and social competence. All in all these examples signal new challenges for teachers and care workers. To meet this development the professionals need new competence. Furthermore it puts an increasing emphasis on the need of organising time for reflection and communication between colleagues in the daily working place.

Social situations take place in the daily meetings which the professional has with families, children and youngsters. Here the focus will be placed on the professional’s competence in understanding the behaviour of children and parents. Teachers, social workers and child welfare employees have a compensating and complementary role to play and a special commitment as adults responsible for education. This role and status strengthen the need to achieve a high quality of empathy as far as their actions and decisions are concerned. This is a change of the professional role which shows to what extent the development of children and young people takes place outside the family. The professionals in school and child welfare are mainly challenged in connection with their ability to observe, assess and act according to the child's behaviour, and the social situation the child is involved in. An example from this daily life in the lower primary school may visualise this:

Trond is six years old and is a pupil of the first form of the lower primary school in an ordinary school. Like his class mates, the boy is looking forward to an exciting and happy weekend together with his parents and his two elder brother and sisters. Friday afternoon is a day full of excitement and expectation for Trond. This weekend is over and Trond is back in school. The teacher in charge of Trond's class immediately notes that something is wrong. Trond is melancholy and hardly looks at the teacher. The teacher finds that this is a situation in which there is no point in putting the boy into the class and trying to encourage him to take part in the social group work. Based on her observation and her judgement, she decides to take Trond apart and talk to him in private. After ten minutes Trond has had the opportunity to tell his teacher about the disappointment of the weekend compared to his great expectations. In short, the weekend consisted of two nights with a baby sitter, drunken parents, and no happy activities together with mum and dad.

Through her observations, judgement and decision to act, the teacher has achieved a satisfactory result: Trond has been given the opportunity to talk about the social situation he brought with him to school on Monday morning; he is now able to participate in the group work of his class, and he can cope with the interaction which takes place in the group. He will be able to match the demands needed for participation in social group work with his class mates. The observant reader may object to the fact that this example leaves open a few unanswered questions. For instance in which way would it be possible for the teacher to leave the rest of the class for ten minutes? Does she have any support in the room next door which she can draw on , or does she have a teacher assistant with her? What if there was more than one Trond that morning, what would be her priorities? These and many more decisions are options this teacher has to take into consideration before acting. She makes these decisions through a process based on professional consciousness.

The purpose of this example is to show how changes of children's needs may indicate to what extent changes of our professional skills are needed. The main issue being how to increase the amount of personal involvement. A central challenge for the professions of social welfare workers and those of teachers is to be able to assist the individual child based on its individual needs. The professional challenge may be expressed as skill and ability to help the group of children to care for each other and not give up.

The key to meeting this change is primarily guidance. More specifically, supervision, based on the working together in a group. Group guidance, in addition to the obvious arguments based on the resources available, has an additional potential compared to individual supervision; group guidance may be more efficient related to the durability, the use of resources and the quality of the professional commitment. Additionally group guidance has the same impact on a group of fellow workers as we indicated it could have on children in the previous paragraph. It serves as an important means of support and care for each other

Through our professional years in social work and education, we have experienced that systematic and continuous supervision, or guidance, has been, and still is, in short supply - and it is a benefit which is greatly needed and wanted. If there has been guidance in certain periods, it has mainly been directed administratively, and focused on the various challenges of the social worker or educator. We have strongly missed the guidance that has aimed at developing the individual social worker and educator as a professional person, preferably based on each worker's experience. To a large extent, advice has been considered a luxury difficult to achieve, and has often been regarded as an intrusion in the daily job. Statements like this: 'We can't spend more time on meetings', or 'The children should have priority' have expressed a real and effective argument against receiving guidance. Perhaps the quality and the contents of the guidance you may have received, have occasionally contributed to making a difficult and challenging job (often at extensive mental costs) even more difficult.

For the last two - three years we have been working with the implementation of a method of supervision and guidance that we came across at a Child Care conference in Glasgow, Scotland in 1997. It is originally called «Opportunity led work» (Ward 1996, 1998) but in our adaptation to a Norwegian context we have renamed it «Decision oriented guidance». We have taken it into use not only in the child care environment where it has been developed, but also within school and educational field. During these last years we have had close contact with Adrian Ward, of the University of Reading in England, who has drawn up the framework for this method.

Guidance based on decision in groups is a methodical approach to practical work, starting with the possibilities created in the everyday interaction with children and young people[2]. The method is based on the skills which are necessary and on the numerous reflections emanating from your decision to act which you meet in your daily interaction with children. In short, this method focuses on the great numbers of opportunities you meet in your everyday job and how to get into the best position to help the young people, creating opportunities and thus achieving long-term results. So the crux of the matter is the skill of the individual social welfare worker and educator to see and make use of the opportunities at hand.

Decision oriented group guidance is usually organised in groups from four to seven persons. The individual group participants prepare, one at a time, a presentation of a social situation taken from their own practical work. The presentation consists of a description based on the four areas of the process of decision-making (priorities, aims, tasks and closure, see Ward 1996). The group members contribute with response/reflection concerning the situation which has been presented. It is important to underline that the response given is supposed to be based on the situation which has been described, so that advice and reflections are linked to what has been felt right and feasible for each of the group members who has presented his problem. The central point is learning connected to your own reflections and advice/suggestions from colleagues, which may come in useful in future. The group guidance is directed by a person responsible for the process, who has been chosen by the group itself. It takes on an average from half an hour to an hour to assess one social situation in the guidance group. Each session may work with one or two presentations.

In the following parts of this paper we will focus on experiences in implementing the method in different settings and social situations and particularly we will highlight in which way this method can be used to enhance staff support and supervision. For further elaboration on the principles and framework of the method we refer to the works of A.Ward.

The richest and nearest sources of knowledge and development of professions connected to work with children and young people is to be found in personal practice. A central challenge is to ensure that the experience you get in the interplay with children and youngsters is transformed into acknowledged and useful knowledge. This is a process which is necessary in order to develop the competence of the social worker and educator. Another central factor is the quality of the work compared to the assignment you have as a professional. How can you, based on the everyday contact with the clients/students, find an opportunity to apply the long-term and systematic tasks and goals? And how can you, at the same time, develop efficient methods to solve problems arising in your everyday work?

In quite a few connections, both in practical work and research, it is a question of 'silent knowledge'. A.Ward (1998) stresses that good intuition is not enough to do a good therapeutic job in child welfare institutions. In order to do a good job and to develop personal skill, you will need the ability and the opportunity to increase the knowledge of your trade. The opportunity is connected to your own practice, and the ability depends on your capacity to know how to proceed. By systematically reflecting and responding, you may be able to transform the mystical knowledge called 'silent' into conscious and applicable knowledge.

The social situation as a starting point of group decision oriented guidance

In the following we will focus on how the professional worker can learn and be supported in a group through reflecting on social situations from his or her own practice. In the case of group supervision, the individual participant presents a social situation to the group. This situation may have a positive or a negative closure. The central point is reflection and response to the process of decision. Which means that recognition of and focus on the assessment, decisions and actions leading to a positive solution to the situation, will give you an important bit of knowledge, and will teach you something useful. However, common to all situations, whether they have a happy ending or an unhappy one, the relationship between child and professional worker will entail uncertainty and dilemmas to all persons involved. To illustrate the process of guidance, we would like to present a situation from a child care institution and give a few examples of reflections which it may inspire.

One of the girls enters the kitchen after having been out playing with the other children. She is about to make herself some fried eggs. The environmental therapist refuses her to do so, and the situation is developing into a 'fight for power'. The therapist thinks that the girl actually wants to provoke him. A boy comes in, and both children sit down at the table. The atmosphere calms down, and the therapist goes into the adjoining living room. At that moment, the children lock the kitchen door. In some way or other, they have got hold of a key. The therapist is worn out and depressed, so he gets angry and threatens to ground the children for the rest of the week. This is what he is shouting through the locked door. At last, he is able to open the door, and he storms into the kitchen. The girl who started the conflict is furious. As a climax, the therapist smashes a glass of water in frustration and anger. One thing leads to another, and at last the situation is out of control. The last resort is to call the police. It takes a long time to calm down the tempers, and the girl is in despair and is wondering why she lives in the institution.

This episode, although quite dramatic, is taken from everyday life, and describes a situation that is likely to occur in a great many institutions. The group guidance concerning the social situation given in the social situation above, may contain the following points of reflection, response, dilemmas and topics of debate:

The girl is very manipulating. Where should a grownup person set a limit to her behaviour?

What should be done to be able to grasp the gravity of the situation you are involved in your relationship with the girl? Among other factors, how could you connect situations occurring immediately before the conflict, with situations that influence the girl's reactions here and now?

When there is an obvious breakdown in communication - how to proceed to restore mutual communication?

What is the best way to behave in order to make a distinction between the child's need for care and close contact, and her efforts to test your patience and influence you in order to achieve something for herself?

Is it possible to change the course of the action once the 'fight for power' has already started?

Long-term relational influence - representing firmness and predictability instead of uncertainty and indulgence?

Several conditions must be clarified in order to realise a stable and systematic guidance in your own organisation. In our experience, only in a very modest degree is necessary time set aside for continuous and systematic professional development and maintenance Among others, this is explained away by the priority which should be given to the numerous and urgent tasks concerning children and their families; that enough time is spent on 'meetings' and that there are not enough resources available. In view of the demands and expectations voiced in connection with guidance groups, it is our experience that it will be very difficult to establish a solid foundation for the increase of competence and the development of quality as long as the areas of guidance and supervision get a low priority.

Some of the demands we have found voiced in connection with decision-making guidance, express a great need for continuity of reflection and response in order to enhance professional competence. There are great variations, but, generally, there is a strong focus on how to increase the process of action. Several social welfare workers have stressed the need to clarify how other environmental workers might contribute to assisting the special contact person in his job, and a clarification of what the tasks of the other environmental workers are in connection with the same child. Moreover, how to contribute to creating frankness in the collegiate group, thereby increasing the level of tolerance of receiving both praise and criticism.

Quite a few people express a demand to focus on the role of the grown-up and on professional behaviour, and would like to discuss how to make decisions within the space available. What should you do when you do not know what to do? How to increase security and consciousness of the decisions that are made, and how to reduce the risk of making decisions that may result in a conflict?

To form a sound basis of the use of group guidance in your own organisation, five central areas should be clarified:

1. Admit and express your own need of support, maintenance and professional development.

2. Set aside and maintain regularly - e.g. once a week - time for group guidance.

5. Contribute to creating legitimacy in your own organisation to ensure that maintenance, support and professional development is a condition of good qualitative work.

Support and maintenance are not really enough to ensure quality and successful development of the professional work with children and young people, but very often they are necessary elements in order to prevent stress and the feeling that you are burnt out and demotivated in a job which is often so strenuous. However, these are also factors which may contribute to motivating the professional and personal development, thereby ensuring experiences and the feeling of sufficiency and competence. In that sense, guidance based on your own practical work has an invaluable potential.

Jorgensen, P.S. (1999) Familjen i det moderne samfund - hvad med oppdragelsen? Article in Cala Article in Calazon

McManus, M. Troublesome behaviour in the classroom. Meeting individual needs. London, Routledge

Ward, A. (1998) The matching principle: connections between training and practice. In A.Ward and McMahon, L. (ed.):
Intuition is not enough. London, Routledge.

Ward, A. (1996) Opportunity led work: 2. The framework, Social Work Education, 15 (3), PP 40-59

[1] We use the term education in a broader sense meaning how to guide children in how to behave, to teach them social skills as well as academic skills and to take care of the children and secure their environmental conditions.

[2] McManus (1989) documents a school teacher on an average has up to 500 social situations of interaction in course of an ordinary day at work

This paper will focus on children living in residential care and their integration in a new local environment on the basis of their educational placement. The presentation is based on the results from two independent works of research. The first is a national survey conducted in 1995-96 which looked into the educational opportunities and placement of children living in residential care (Ollestad & Tveit, 1996). The second is an evaluation study of a residential institution for girls (Clifford & Arnesen, 1997).

Norway has approximately 150 public residential institutions for children and young people up to the age of 15. Many of these institutions are placed in rural areas. The idea of placing urban children in rural areas is deeply rooted in the history of Norwegian child care. In different periods of time the notion of the benefits of countryside life for city children, such as fresh air, a simple life, plenty of nutritious food and hard work has been widespread. To some extent this notion still exists. To-day, though, the emphasis is more on the necessity of removing the children from the perils of the urban life than underlining the benefits of rural surroundings.Our sample in the first study consisted of 37 different residential institutions representing all of Norway’s 19 counties. Approximately one half of these institutions were situated in rural areas. Very few of them run their own schools. In accordance with official Norwegian educational policy all children shall attend the local mainstream school. A central question in the survey addressed the educational placement of children in residential care in regards to national standards for integration and inclusion in the local school system. The results indicate a general picture of educational integration in the local community for a special group of children, who very often come from urban areas and are moved into residential care in rural areas. The material does not, however, consider the rural -urban dimension specifically. In the latter part of the paper the issue of integrating urban young people in rural areas will be dealt with more directly through the results from the second study.

Children living in residential care receive to a great extent, segregated education in spite of official policy

Integration and inclusion has been the official policy in Norway for more than twenty years. Public figures show that over 99% of all children between 7-15 years of age attend their local public school. This does not seem to be the case for children living in residential care. Our research shows that 34.4% of the children up to age 15 living in public residential care received their compulsory education in segregated settings outside mainstream schools. Our sample of institutions consisted both of institutions with short-term and long-term attendance, but the number of segregated pupils did not differ significantly between the two. Furthermore we found that of the approximately 2/3 of our sample who attended the local school, almost 60% received part or all their education in separated settings within the mainstream school. All in all our survey reveals a tendency towards extensive segregated education for this special group of children.

The Educational Law of Norway allows special education in special units both within and outside the mainstream school. For some children with special problems and needs such placement is regarded as necessary. The placement must, however, be based on a specialist assessment by the local «Pedagogisk- Psykologisk Tjeneste» (Psychological-Educational Services) , and in each case the local school board/or principal must make an «enkelt vedtak» (statement of provision of special resources). The parents have the right to complain on this «enkelt vedtak». Our data reveals that for as many as 50% of the children in the survey who received their education in separate settings, a specialist assessment was lacking. This result indicates that for a great number of children in residential care their placement in special units or settings may be based on grounds other than their special educational needs. This in itself represents a serious violation of these students legal rights.

On the whole the issue of placement is a complex one. Available international research data (Kauffman and Lloyd 1995) show «that place alone is not the critical ingredient in helping students attain important social and academic goals» (p. 15). Even more than other children, the ones living in residential care need acceptance, understanding and care. They want to be regarded as normal children and youngsters, especially amongst their peers. On this basis the educational placement of students living in residential care raises some important challenges. These children are uprooted from their neighbourhood, families and friends and have to adjust to a completely new, often very different setting, with new adult and peer relations in the institution as well as in school. They are removed from their home environment, often in a crisis situation and are very vulnerable. They may be in a state of mind somewhere between shock from the separation from their home environment and hope for the future. For many of these children placement in a mainstream school setting from day one proves to be a disaster. Our survey shows that the schools as well as the institutions have great difficulties in establishing the right educational provisions to meet the individual needs of the students. One of the reasons for this is the fact that the placement often comes without preparation. Necessary information is lacking and teachers report that they feel more or less like they are blind-folded in their attempt to meet the individual student in the most appropriate way.

In Norway some municipal authorities are seriously looking into different ways of coping with these problems. A main strategy seems to be an introduction of a temporary small and supportive educational unit either within or outside the local school which has as its main objective providing a safe and prepared introduction to the mainstream school. The greatest danger in choosing this temporary solution is, of course, that it ends up as a permanent segregated educational placement. As we will illustrate in the next section the young people themselves want to be in a normalised educational setting amongst their peers. Furthermore, some of them seem to grow and thrive from this in spite of the fact that they seldom are met in an appropriate way when they attend their new schools.

The second part of this presentation is based on data from interviews with girls living at a private residential institution, a resource-centre for girls exposed to severe neglect, violence and/or sexual abuse. The girls are mainly recruited from two major cities in Norway. The institution is established on an old farm in a scarcely populated agricultural area. The girls describe their first impressions from coming to the institution as: «It was like ending up in the wilderness» and «Strange surroundings, desolate, open and flat» and they point out that the shift from their urban background was dramatically vast.
The girls are placed in the institution at the age of 15 or 16. Most of the girls have a very strong resistance to being placed there. Many of them have been involved in crime, prostitution and drug abuse, and they have nearly all had numerous, and mostly unsuccessful, previous placements under residential care. With this background and often with minimal motivation they are expected to adapt themselves to the local community.

The girls give a complex picture of their adaptation to the local school. One of the girls puts it this way: « There were no plans worked out for me by the school. The general idea was that I was going to attend school every day and take classes along with the others. Still I felt special. A problem child. It made me feel uneasy.»
There are four aspects that are central in the girls’ descriptions of their education in the local environment:

1) There is a lack of co-ordination and adjustment from both the school and the institution at the start of school.
2) Social and educational adaptation is long-lasting and often painful.
3) There is a high frequency of truancy amongst many of the girls.
4) School opens up possibilities and space for socialising amongst peers and establishing good peer relations.

Two of these aspects are of special interest in this connection. On the one side the girls’ experience of the adaptation as long-lasting and painful. On the other side they see the benefits from attending school in regards to the opportunities for establishing positive peer relations in the local community.

It is obvious that both the local school and the institution do not contribute enough to accelerate and lighten this adaptation. The local school does, however, have a unique and obviously underestimated and important role in regards to peer-socialisation. The material from the interviews show that in spite of difficult conditions such as the remote placement of the institution, the girls urban and troublesome background, different conduct and the local community’s attitude towards them, the girls still manage to establish friendship with other young people in the local community.

The study furthermore shows a considerable discrepancy in regards to the importance of school placement between the girls self-report and the staff’s own descriptions. The staff are worried about the girls’ behaviour, background and prejudices in the local community as major obstacles in allowing the girls to adjust at school. Many of the girls, however, stress their positive experience of the local school and the possibilities this arena gives them to get in contact with peers outside the institution. Equality and mutual respect are concepts that often are used in their descriptions. The girls who seem to succeed in establishing good peer-relations, also experience improved school motivation and better test results. The material also indicates that these girls have a history of resilience. The descriptions from the ones who without any resistance seem to adapt both to the institution and the school are far more negative. This result coincides with other research in the field (Dugan & Coles, 1989, Jonsson, 1990 and Hammen, 1991).
Finally, as an illustration of the benefits of being accepted by their peers in the local community, we present part of the story told by one of the girls. She had a background from living on the streets in one of Norway’s major cities from the age of 11.

«..I get into fights here too, and I win you know. So everybody wants to challenge me in elbow wrestling. I take them down one by one and everybody goes around saying how strong I am. But I’m not as tough as I look. I don’t want to go around and beat up people, you must believe me. What they really like is that I’m able to tell it like it is, I don’t like to be picked on. I’m easy to tease, but my friends do all they can to keep me out of trouble. Still many seem to think I’m dangerous. I broke the nose of the girl who hit me. That gets around. I’ve told her I didn’t mean to harm her, and that I’ll never do it again. I don’t want to do the wrong things. I feel like they’ve started to accept me as I am. Now it seems like if I do something out of line people aren’t afraid of speaking up.»

The shortcomings in providing an adequate educational setting for the urban children moving into residential care and the poorly developed collaboration between the local school and the institution are well documented in our research.Still it is important for us to emphasise the necessity to explore the possibilities that lie in establishing peer relations in the community by attending the local school.

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Tveit,A. (1996) Integrert for å bli segregert - eller segregert for å bli integrert? Hovedfagsoppgave ved Pedagogisk institutt, Norges Teknisk Naturvitenskaplige Universitet,Trondheim.

Summary of paper at CEC conference in Charlotte N-C 15-17 April 1999

Children living in residential care receive to a great extent, segregated education in spite of official policy