From the outside of the themes

by Lene Tanggaard

This short paper is a reflection of my own experiences as a teacher on the specialist- module in educational psychology. I use the opportunity to reflect ‘from the outside’ on the themes in the present collection of papers. The papers can be seen as a sign of, and reflection upon, the directions and tendencies in current educational psy- chology.

Context management as preferred practice

by Jørn Nielsen

The wellbeing of children and adolescents is a matter of great complexity. Mental is social, and without context, children’s symptoms have no meaning at all. In order to understand and create the meaning of the symptoms, it´s necessary to enter multi- ple contexts in a child’s life, and we must create possibilities for different contexts to inspire each other and together create movement and development. The most im- portant contexts for children and adolescents are family, school and peers. Educa- tional psychologists in PPR (Pædagogisk Psykologisk Rådgivning) have unique chances to create new perspectives for the child as well for significant adults in im- portant contexts. This article argues for context management as a preferred way of answering invitations from children and adolescents.

The PPR-Psychologist as the Good and Vigilant Host: Paradigms and Positions

by Vibe Strøier

The article explores the metaphor of Host for the position of the PPR psychologist when encountering wicked problems. The metaphor facilitates a transformational understanding of the tasks of the psychologist, by opening a door to an understand- ing of the Host-position as a position of setting of a frame for awareness, involve- ment and learning in a context of problem-solving.

How PPR isn’t utilised and its potential related to helping school and in- stitutions with an organisational approach

by Camille Leicht, Morten Novrup Henriksen and Thomas Lundb

The purpose of this article is to show how PPR isn’t utilised and its potential relat- ed to helping school and institutions with an organisational approach. Furthermore, the article aims to analyse why this perspective is being neglected and to suggest how to put organisational psychology interventions on the agenda in PPR.
Based on research, the article argues that schools and other institutions could benefit if PPR-psychologists helped secure maximal profit from courses and educa- tion, and in processes of change. Some of the avenues to address these challenges as a PPR psychologist are by focusing on immunity to change, professional learning communities, and how workplace culture can stand in the way of progress.
The reasons behind organisational psychology being a negligible part of PPR are that the competencies are currently not there. Also, that a part of the culture at PPR is to allow employees to use the methods they desire, which makes it hard to bring about collective changes. And finally, that schools do not expect the organisa- tional services examined above by a PPR-psychologist, which means that the change must start with PPR.

The impact of working with action learning

by Sara Bork, Louise Einspor and Lone Hygum

In this paper, we describe and discuss the organisation of the 3-year pilot project ‘The specialisation module in educational psychology’. We discuss the impact of working with action learning. Through action learning, we have developed new skills and structures, and therefore consolidated knowledge in the respective PPR- offices.
We describe and refer to two action learning projects. One which involves both a leadership and educational psychological perspective and another which has a ro- bust explorative perspective in practice.
The paper emphasises the point that the explorative approach and the establish- ment of professional learning communities have been key to the engagement of par- ticipants and also to the organisational learning.

“Sampraksis” as an interprofessional method to cooperate

by Hanne Bisgaard Jensen, Anne-Mette Lyngvold Nielsen and Maria Hedegaard

This article seeks to explore how “sampraksis” as a method is a way to facilitate an interdisciplinary and interprofessional approach to cooperate in PPR in order to help children in need.
We start out by giving a brief historical introduction to point out the recent de- velopment in PPR’s role, tasks and functions. We describe a growing need to exceed the traditional ways to help children in need in our schools and day-cares because of an increasing complexity of their problems. Inspired by action learning projects at our workplace we present two cases, where we explored “sampraksis” as a method to accommodate the growing complexity. In “sampraksis”, the PPR-consultant rea- ches out to the professionals around the child to plan and run the interventions to- gether in order to bring in the different professions and disciplines into the inter- vention. This way of working is erasing the boundaries between the different pro- fessions because the point is to learn from each other’s disciplines in order to deal with the problem. We discuss whether this development is a threat to the role of the psychologist in PPR because of a risk that the boundaries between the different professions become blurred. In conclusion, we state that we still see a need for a so- lid psychological profession in PPR but also that we find it necessary to exceed, ex- pand and explore our own professionality and new ways of practices in order to stay relevant in PPR.

Lone wolf – free bird: Developing educational psychological competences in PPR through collaborative learning

by Sanne Birk Christensen and Abigael Cora Smith

In the following article, we will describe, how we as a group of educational psycho- logists have developed meeting leadership skills through Action Learning and colla- borative learning. Meeting leadership and management skills is not part of the cur- riculum for many psychologists in Denmark. Conducting and managing meetings is, however, a large part of the job for psychologists in educational psychology. New- ly educated psychologists in educational psychology positions often seek advice on the matter from their more experienced colleagues, receiving guidance and know- ledge that is difficult to utilise. Generally, systematic dissemination of knowledge is often conveyed through courses, mentoring and internal and external supervision. Common to these forums is that they take place in situations beyond the real con- text. In this article, we unfold our work with an Action Learning project, where our focus was on developing meeting leadership skills and initiating processes during meetings in order to increase our overall ability in promoting development and
well-being for children and adolescents in Danish institutions. In this process, we have observed each others meeting leadership in practice, and through a collabora- tive learning fellowship, we have compiled a meeting template and a meeting invi- tation with an agenda for how the psychologist could conduct the meeting.
We argue that collaborative learning fellowships are useful platforms to develop skills for educational psychologists and allows access to previously inaccessible knowledge. Furthermore, we experience, that when we are closer to each others practices, and when this involvement takes place with equitable relations, this in- creases the disciplinary community in the workplace. We suggest implementing col- laborative learning fellowships in daily practice, and that workplace management creates a framework that gives employees the time to reflect on own practice and skills development in self-established groups. We suggest that collaborative fellowships with a focus on developing practical skills may complement mentoring and collegial supervision as a method to continuously improve skills, develop new ap- proaches to key tasks and generate useful practical knowledge in the field of educa- tional psychology.

New methods and new positions that give the psychologist access to warm data

by Anne Suurballe Tornelund, Christina Keis Jakobsen and Sara Hedegaard Jensen

Based on two projects of action learning, both involving an intervening observation, we outline how the educational psychologist can get closer to the child and close to the educational practice through new methods and new positions that give the psy- chologist access to warm data and thereby an insight into the emotional environ- ment and conditions of development and behaviour of the child. We describe an ex- ploration of our own practice which has given us direction on paths of development for the educational psychologist in the practice of PPR. We describe how exceeding professional practice can open the closed meeting rooms and how we, together with educational practitioners, can create new paths of development for children in diffi- culty.

How we are to understand processes of potential religious radicalisation in the context of the school

by Iram Khawaja

In recent years, we have seen an increased focus on religious radicalisation amon- gst youngsters, and there has been a growing concern regarding how we as educati- onal professionals can understand and deal with such cases. This article deals with the question of how we are to understand processes of potential religious radicalisa- tion in the context of the school and argue for a shift away from a static and proble- matising understanding of ethnicity and culture to a more dynamic conceptualisati- on which takes social categories, identity and belonging into account.