Too many cooks spoil the broth? Not in Nordmoere in the…

 

It is almost impossible to disagree that we need to get better at working together around children and young people. We all want the same thing. For children to be safe and well, to be met early, to be understood correctly, and to receive support that actually works. And yet, it is often the collaboration itself that makes us feel a little exhausted. Not because we do not want to, but because cross professional and cross sector collaboration is genuinely demanding.

Right now, this is clearer than ever, both politically and legally. In the Norwegian White Paper No. 34, A More Practical School (Meld. St. 34 En mer praktisk skole), the importance of strengthening the “team around the pupil” is emphasised. The paper points out that collaboration within each school is an important first step, while coordination across services and actors is the next major step. It also underlines that municipalities must be able to organise this based on local needs, and that it is not sensible for the state to define one single model that fits everyone.

At the same time, legal amendments and clarifications have been introduced that oblige welfare services to collaborate and coordinate when children and young people need integrated support across services. The changes entered into force on 1 August 2022 and include, among other things, duties to collaborate and coordinate, the child coordinator role, and rules on individual plans. The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training also refers to a cross sector

guidance document that explains how this should be understood in practice, both at system level and at individual level.

So yes, the framework is clear. And precisely because of that, it becomes extra interesting to talk about what is not written in legislation or white papers, but what decides whether this actually becomes something real. Namely, how we make it work in everyday life.

 

Two logics, one shared goal

One of the most fascinating, and most challenging, parts of this collaboration is the meeting point between education and upbringing on the one hand, and health services on the other. The education and upbringing field is often shaped by a learning logic and by inclusive processes. We talk a lot about development, relationships, mastery, belonging, and the learning environment. We want everyone involved, we want ownership, we want shared understanding, and we want to develop practice together. The health field is often shaped by symptoms, assessment, treatment, and procedures. It is about systematics, quality assurance, documentation, and clear lines of responsibility. When something is serious, we need to know what we are doing, who is doing it, and why.

Both of these logics have major strengths. And both can feel a little demanding for the other side, especially when time pressure is high and we are each standing in our own everyday sandbox.

Education and upbringing can benefit from more procedures and standards, so it becomes clearer who is responsible for what, and what should happen when concerns arise. Not as a straightjacket, but as a safer guardrail. Health services can benefit from more process and translation. Procedures do not live on their own. They must be understood, adapted, and turned into concrete actions in kindergartens and schools. Otherwise, they remain nice words in a document, and that is not really the point.

When we manage this, something a little magical happens. The procedures become more human, and the processes become more precise. We move from “what do you actually mean” to “now I understand, and now I can do something about it.”

 

Inner layer and outer layer, one system in different arenas

In practice, many municipalities talk about two “layers” around children and young people. The inner layer is what is closest to the child’s everyday life in kindergarten or school, what can adjust practice quickly, and what knows the children best. The outer layer is the wider support system that can be connected when needed, and that can contribute other perspectives, professional expertise, and measures. The terms are used slightly differently from place to place, but the basic idea is widely recognised.

The inner layer may be what is often called an inclusion team, a school environment team, or a resource team. Dear child, many names. What they have in common is that this is an arena where school leadership, teaching expertise, and adapted education and special needs competence (ITO) meet regularly together with the school health service and the Educational Psychological Service (PPT), working with both an individual and a system perspective at the

same time. An individual perspective because some children need us to see them more clearly and act earlier. A system perspective because children do not live in a vacuum. They live in everyday routines, in groups, in transitions, in adult roles, in organisation, in relationships. And sometimes, it is the system that needs a small adjustment for children to thrive.

The outer layer is more about cross sector collaboration across services, the kind of work White Paper No. 34 points to as a larger task that must be solved by, or in collaboration with, other services, not by the school or kindergarten alone.

What is easy to agree on, but harder to achieve, is the link between these two. Because if the inner layer works on its own, and the outer layer is connected in a more random way, we do not get the coherence we are aiming for. Then it can quickly become more cooks, more mess.

And this is where Nordmoere impresses.

The Nordmoere education network shows the way

In Nordmoere, the municipalities have launched a joint initiative that is solidly anchored and well prepared. They spent a full year on preparation and are now in their first year of implementation. That alone deserves applause, because we all know how easy it is to want a lot, and how demanding it is to set things up properly.

While the municipalities are piloting “Rett hjelp tidlig “(literally “Right help, early”), they are also working to introduce or re-establish the inner layer in schools and kindergartens. In other words, the regular cross professional arenas in everyday practice where leadership, professional expertise, ITO, the school health service and child health clinics, and the Educational Psychological Service can meet and work in a structured way with what actually happens in learning spaces, outdoor play, transitions, and the learning environment. Ambition is clear. Over time, observations and the inclusive teamwork will connect, so that collaboration in both the inner and the outer layer becomes more systemic.

And that is a smart move.

Because “Right help, early” is in itself a collaboration model that several municipalities describe as a way to ensure early intervention, coordinated services, and good involvement, precisely by enabling multiple services to see together and act more coherently.

Observations set in a system, with many professional lenses

In recent weeks, we at IMTEC have taken part in cross sector observations in several kindergartens, with a particular focus on the toddler units. We have done this together with Øyvind Kvello from NTNU, and local professionals from the Educational Psychological Service, child welfare services, and the health station, in close collaboration with the kindergarten staff themselves.

And yes, it is exactly as exciting as it sounds.

When many professionals look at the same reality, both our understanding and our precision sharpen. We have been looking for children who may be struggling, children who are thriving, children who show signs that have not necessarily been noticed earlier, and children who perhaps simply need the adults around them to see them a little more clearly.

We have looked for signs in both physical and cognitive development, but also in what is often hardest to spot in a busy everyday life. Language development. Contact with other children and adults. Emotion regulation. Attention. Creativity. Transitions. Small signals that can either be perfectly normal variation, or small warning lights that deserve an extra look.

At the same time, we have had a system perspective. How is the day organised. How is the adult role used. How do teams work. What happens in the hectic moments. How is the community supported without individual children disappearing in the crowd.

And I have to say it plainly; I am full of admiration!

Kindergarten is not “just play”. Kindergarten is highly skilled relational work in constant motion. I have seen adults using their whole selves, all the time, to guide children’s language development by continuously naming what the children do, eat, try to express, feel, and wonder about.

I have seen “octopus arms” in action. Adults who can offer a calm moment with puzzles and LEGO to a child who needs it, while three or four little whirlwinds on the other side of the room urgently need to burn off energy. And it happens without the room exploding, and without the child who needs calm being forgotten.

It takes energy and surplus capacity to work in kindergarten. There is no doubt about that. And that capacity does not come from luck. It comes from competence, structure, collaboration, and a culture where people help each other.

The follow up meetings, when learning becomes shared

After the observations, we have held large follow up meetings. Here, the kindergartens have received feedback on what we see as strong practice, and what we believe could be useful to focus on going forward. It has been genuinely interesting to see what happens when several professional lenses meet around the same situations. There is less guesswork and more precision. Less “I think” and more “I have seen”. And because we look through different lenses, we also notice different things.

The good part is that the kindergarten staff often have noticed much of the same. When they receive recognition and confirmation from multiple directions, it can provide both reassurance and energy. Many already have the right gut feeling, but it does something to us to have that gut feeling confirmed and clarified.

In most cases, the observations have ended with the kindergarten continuing to follow the children’s development and continuing their good practice, perhaps with a few adjustments and a clearer shared focus.

In some cases, the observations have also led to the kindergarten gaining the confidence to involve other services, such as paediatric habilitation services or Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (BUP). This does not mean skipping formal assessments or responsibility lines, but rather moving forward with a shared knowledge base. When the Educational Psychological Service, child welfare services, and the health station have seen the same picture, it often becomes easier to clarify what is concern, what is developmental variation, and what should be assessed or followed up.

This is where the municipalities in Nordmoere hit the mark. Because they do not treat collaboration as a nice idea. They treat collaboration as a structure.

The link that makes it systemic

And this is where the connection to the inner layer becomes a small, but very important, piece of the puzzle. When observations in kindergarten and school are carried out cross sector, we get a stronger and more shared data foundation. When the inner layer meets regularly, schools and kindergartens have a steady engine for turning data into action in everyday practice. When these two are connected more tightly over time, we get a system that can discover, understand, and follow up. Not randomly, but over time. Not dependent on individuals, but dependent on structures. Not only in individual cases, but also at system level.

This is exactly what the national expectations point to. That collaboration is not only about individual children, but also about systematic collaboration between services, both to solve tasks and to strengthen each other’s ability to solve tasks.

From pilot to shared initiative, with a clear plan

This round has been a pilot where four of the eight municipalities have been pilots, while the remaining four have participated in the follow up meetings to gain a concrete experience of the method and pick up tips for their own implementation. During this year, all municipalities in Nordmoere will get started, with a rotation over the next three years. And this autumn, we will begin in schools in a similar way.

This means it is not a “one- off” project. It is joint capacity building and a shared way of gathering knowledge for education and health services working with children and young people. And this is exactly how we move from unsystematic to systemic. Not by creating more plans, but by creating shared practice that provides data, learning, and direction.

And yes, we will develop a guide for the method, so that the experiences from the pilot can be translated into something that is feasible for others as well. The goal is not to create yet another document that gathers dust, but to describe a practice that can help more municipalities set up strong collaboration between education and health.

Credit to Nordmoere

Finally, I want to give real credit to the Nordmoere education network. They are doing this thoroughly and systematically, with an enormous willingness to learn, both from each other and from external professional environments. It is a rare combination of courage and humility. Courage to try, and humility to adjust.

Too many cooks spoil the broth? Not in Nordmoere. Here, more cooks simply make better food.