| Popis: |
There is increasing concern across Finnish society over the growing number of children being referred to specialized psychiatric care, leading to calls to develop new ways to deal with such problems at the primary health service level and close to the children’s growth environments such as schools. However, the signals from those working in different educational settings reveal that there are shortcomings in the ability of schools and Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services to deal with behavioural problems in educational settings. In this article our aim is to identify the core elements found in the literature on a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) for conduct problems in both school and ECEC environments, and how these core elements correspond to the attempt to create a multi-tiered system of support within a Finnish region. The data is based on a literature search and a written account and an interview of a case example. The literature search consists of articles about multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) within educational settings when dealing with conduct problems. The written account of case example was compared to MTSS literature and analysed collaboratively in an interview with a representative from the region. The literature search revealed 832 titles, and 14 articles were chosen based on predefined criteria. According to the literature consulted, there are three core elements that should be considered when implementing MTSS within educational settings. These three core elements were ways by which psychosocial support is selected and used, how the tasks and responsibilities of management and administrative support procedures are organized, and how the network support is used. The results from comparing the literature findings with the regional case example revealed that most gaps in relation to the literature were found in relation to leadership processes associated with implementation and monitoring procedures of psychosocial support, i.e., how the responsibilities of management and administrative support were organized. As it seems, MTSS is one potential solution for dealing with behavioural problems in schools structurally. In order for MTSS to be successful in educational settings, it requires strong systems for collecting data and skillful, adaptive and technical leadership. In Finland there are structures and networks already in place to take up MTSS, but as of today, there has been little or no attempt to implement the core elements of MTSS in educational settings. |
