Abstract

Møllehagen school centre

To make you understand a bit of whom we are and what we are doing:

The school centre is not for everybody! On the contrary, this is a school for somebody. The pupils at Møllehagen school centre have some kind of need for an adapted education. The reason why does vary from the pupil who is at the hospital, is in a psychiatric unit or because of problems that is linked to child care. Additional to these groups, there are pupils who attend Møllehagen just because we have the knowledge to adapt education to this specific difficulty.

Approximately a hundred persons are working at Møllehagen. There are a lot of pedagogues at Møllehagen. All of them are educated in the science of education. The level of specialisation varies from those two who are studying to become dr. scient, a handful that has got their master in special pedagogic and the rest who are teachers and supplied this education with one ore two more years where special educational needs are the topic. There are also a number of persons with education related to social care.

The crisis is often the reason why the pupils go to the school at Møllehagen. Whether it is because he has been run over by a car or has got a cancer diagnosis does not matter. The crisis can also be in the family such as alcoholised parents or parents with psychiatric problems. It can also be that the psychiatric problems are within the pupil itself.

The youngest of our pupils you will find at the hospital. Children below school age does get help from us it is necessary. As an example a child born too early often gets nutrition in an artificial way and has to learn to eat normally. The oldest you will find at the department for adults who wants to take high school exam.

Our latest established unit does most of its work at the home school of the pupil. Our teachers observe and guide the teachers. We do think that when we succeed to make the change at the lowest possible level, the success is more valuable for all participants.

Because of the knowledge we gain through our work and education, we do offer quite a variety of courses directed to the special pedagogical area. All of our courses have got the pedagogical challenges as a central topic. Examples titles in our courses and seminars are:

• Eating disorder

• Knut has got a cancer diagnosis

• Different psychiatric diagnoses and pedagogical consequences

• How to prevent and master aggression

• Social competence

• Violence and abuse

• The use of ICT in the special pedagogical work

• ...and a couple of more themes

Our work does often consist of adaption, and that is what we do concerning courses as well. We often get a call where we are asked: Can you…..? Our aim is as often and soon as possible say YES!

Different topics where we have got some skills, and would like to collaborate with others to become even better.

a) Migration

Due to the increasing movement in ethnic groups, the focus on migration and pedagogical consequences is an increasing challenge. At Møllehagen school centre the number of pupils with a foreign ethnic background is growing as it is in the ordinary school. Our experience is that the number of pupils with additional problems is higher in most of the new ethnic groups than in the Norwegian school system. These problems are relational difficulties, cultural problems, problems with language etc. Our experience with different ethnic groups was earlier mostly linked to Norwegian families who adopted children. We can partly see the same kind of challenges in these groups as in families that move to Norway. There is a small group from the Roman people that has given us some experience that is worth mentioning.

At Møllehagen we have special pedagogues that has specialised in the pedagogical challenges related to migration, and we are offering courses to groups of teachers, social workers and parents. “Chosen and chosen away” is the title, where we focus both on challenges related to adoption and migration. We collaborate with the University of Stavanger. Dr. H Fandrem, who has specialised on this topic is our contact there.

b) Violence and abuse

A large number of the pupils at Møllehagen school centre have a history of domestic abuse and violence. Violence and abuse are often associated with shame and taboos. This is likely to lead to underreporting, and therefore it is reasonable to assume that the number of pupils with a history of violence and abuse is in fact higher than the estimates publicised in Government statistics.

New science has revealed that children and adolescents placed in child care with behavioural problems or psychiatric diseases are at risk related to this specific problem, and have more often been abused.

Those pupils at the school centre who have experience with abuse fall into three groups. They are either victims of abuse, they may be performers of abuse or they may have a combined experience as both victim and performer of abuse. This diversity gives us great challenges concerning our daily work. First and foremost our aim is to care for the individual child or adolescent at hand. But there are also major challenges relating to control, supervision and security in order to prevent further abuse.

Our school centre is responsible for focusing on all aspects of violence and abuse. It is important to note that the concept violence and abuse incorporates the prevention of forced marriage and circumcision.

A large number of our pupils, both at the psychiatric units and at the units serving child care institutions have been exposed to violence and sexual abuse. The numbers vary between 60 – 80 %. This year we are aware that the school have at least three adolescences in our care that have abused juveniles.

We have in our work focused on how to approach pupils who are sending different kind of signals. Especially signals that is first step on the ladder to accept and open up the dialogue into a difficult task. The first revealing dialogue is the topic where our knowledge is necessary also in ordinary school. During this autumn (-09) we have a number of teachers at Møllehagen who have got the competence to keep courses for other teachers.

We have established a project on this theme. Our partners are RVTS (Centre of resource on the topics Violence, Traumas and Suicide), The University of Stavanger, ATV (Alternative To Violence), SUS (University Hospital of Stavanger) ……

c) How do we know that we deliver good quality?

We are convinced that we do. But we would very much like to have even more focus on this important topic.

To maintain that conviction we lean on different kinds of feedback. Our internal inquiries are directed to those who receive our services. A couple of years we have asked for an evaluation on our work and used a scale from 1 – 6, where 6 is the best result. Last year the average score on every question was 5,4.

We do also ask for feedback on our courses and seminars. In these topics we have used a scale from 1 – 6 as well as a 1 – 10 scale. Two examples – not randomly picked: The two days conference on violence and abuse had 5,7 as an average feedback (6 was best). The course we had on eating disorder gave us 9 (10 is best) as an average score. No wander that the principal is a very proud man!

External inquiries initiated from the department are delegated to “Læringslaben”. The personal inquiry is really to be proud of. Møllehagen school centre is in the top three in our county. Especially on the diagram where focus on teaching is in one co-ordinate axis how the teachers collaborate on the other, we get very good results comparing to other schools.

Two of the members of the leading group are doing their master related to the theme: What is quality? We hope to bring this work close to our every day work and to be even more focused on evident based practise.

d) Activity as a way to achieve good results at school.

The pupils living in child care institutions often have behavioural difficulties. These problems often come together with a school history with little or no participating. Mentally these pupils do not see themselves as such. Our task is to bring them back as pupils. The “long and winding road” back to a role as a pupil has different challenges. At our two units, Lindøy (an island 10 min by boat from the centre of Stavanger) and MAS (Møllehagen Activity School) we have extended the amount of activity as a method to bring these children back to the school classroom.

e) Competence and development.

Internal competence and development is an important issue to make the employees feel ok about the place they are working and therefore prevent too high turnover. The last years we have worked to establish a system on how to increase competence. This has been quite a success, but does challenge the system. We have tried to divide our system into three different groups. Basic topics, Technical topics and Specialised topics.

As a good supplement we are members of RKK (Rogaland Education and Training Centre). Through this membership we have got the support to develop our skills, and have arranged quite a number of different courses, seminars and conferences. High competence leads to good courses (seminars or conferences), which gives us more money to develop our competence. This circle is running faster every year. Nevertheless we are interested in how to improve the system.

f) Supervision, Counselling, Advice, Guidance, Coaching.

All of the units at Møllehagen receive S, C, A, G or C as a part of developing the group. This involves the leading group as well. External help is engaged to focus on the interaction in the group, as well as a focus on the pedagogical challenges in our everyday life. We use psychologist, psychiatrist, coaches or similar groups to lead these performances.

We use the methods in our work. Specially one unit (UTVEI = Way out) has focused on how the work directed to the system can have an influence on the way the pupils behave. In these cases the pupils stay in their home school, and our staff travels to the school. Our work is directed to the school as a system. We are focusing on changes the system that will lead to wanted change in the behaviour of the pupils. More and more often we also get different requests from schools wanting our expertise to focus on the school as a system or whether interaction between the grownups are adequate to achieve the wanted aims of the school.

A number of our staff is already qualified in the subject. This year we have collaborated with the university to make this possible. Further more will qualify the years to come.

We offer courses in the subject. The courses are directed to schools, kindergartens or groups of people having a task to do together.

g) Use of ICT and the Internet.

During the last years we have focused on using our home page www.mollehagen.no more actively. The curve to the right should show more than words that the development in how many “users” that find it interesting to see what is in our home page is increasing rapidly.

Competence in using ICT has been a theme we have tried to highlight. Most of our teachers have documented qualifications in Word, Exel, Powerpoint and Outlook. The test we are using is called “Datakortet”, and is a standardised test. All of the units at Møllehagen school centre have at least one Smart-Board at their disposal. We want that the next focus should be pedagogical use of ICT. Knowledge and equipment should not be an obstacle.

Videoconference has so far been used directed at adults. The struggle against fire walls, different systems, compatibility and other technical problems seems to be past tense. To expand the use of videoconferences could be an interesting challenge together with “playmates” somewhere in Europe.

“Sound – books” - a topic where we have second to no experience concerning special pedagogical use. It does not make it less interesting.

h) Diagnosis and pedagogical consequences.

Our work with children with different diagnosis has given us quite some experience on how to organize the everyday at school for these children, adolescence and early grown ups.

• ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder)

• Tourette Syndrome

• PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)

• RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder)

• ME (Myelagic Encephalamyelitt = Chronic exhaustion)

• Cancer

• Anxiety

• Eating Disorder

• Compulsive action

i) School refusal.

This year we have established a group of pupils with school refusal or school drop out as a problem. The work is rather successful, and we have established a group collaborating with the University of Stavanger to discuss how to approach this specific problem.

International projects

a) Earlier

Friends without borders – England, Lithuania, Netherlands and Norway

Empower Deprived Learners – Austria, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey and Norway

Better Building – Austria, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey and Norway

Gender and Diversity – Austria, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey and Norway.

b) Ongoing

Skills enhancement for vulnerable groups in local areas in Europe – Denmark, Norway, Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal, Iceland