News

This year, SAMM collaborated with other actors in HBS (Healthpromoting kindergartens and schools) to make a symposium with four presentations at the international IAFOR’s European Conference on Education, which was supposed to be in London. This year the event was digital, and we gathered to give the presentations together. The leader of HBS, Eva-Kristin Paschen- Eriksen, started with an introduction on why we need a public health programme in Norway, and this was followed up by Migle Helmersen from Norce, presenting healthpromoting indicators and an example of how these could be implemented. This was followed up by two SAMM presentations, where Gerd Martina contributed with a presentation on life mastery in upper secondary school and Eva Carmen contributed with a presentation on how the SAMM-method can be applied in student councils. It was very inspiring and fun to collaborate, a real success, thanks for the efforts everyone 🙂

Photos by Julie Sundsdal Nærdal

Close to 40 people were gathered to kick-off for this new project, which is developed based on SAMM in adult learning. Several representatives from the five participating municipalities were present; Birkenes, as leading partner, Lillesand, Grimstad, Vennesla and Evje and Hornnes. Also representatives from the County Governors and the University of Agder came, which we appreciated a lot.

The projects main idea is to integrate the fivestep method when working with individual plans, both at the refugee services and the adult learning centres, for immigrants that participate in the introduction programme. The main point is that the participants bring their reflections when meeting with different institutions, with the purpose of experiencing that they to a larger extent own the process themselves.

The project has received 400 000 NOK from IMDi (The Directorate og Integration and Diversity), and builds on the idea that last year won the regional idea contest about how one may improve the quality of the qualification programme for immigrants. Thanks to Kedir Diary, Maria Bjerke Dalene and Gerd Martina Langeland for contributing this evening.

During the school year 2020-2021, the plan was to implement the motivation project in several schools in Peru in cooperation with the Department of Education. Toril and Ingebjørg work for NLM in Peru (the Lutheran Missionary Association), and they were to present and implement the project in several public schools there, but this ended suddenly when the corona-virus hit the world. They managed to present the project in one school before everything closed down, and it was well received. Caring teachers with many pupils who live under rough conditions were very happy to learn about this way of working. The principal was very grateful. When the world starts again, we can again follow the development of the project in Peru.

A small oasis in the SAMM-life, with brainstorming, adjusting and planning – an efficient workday while others are on vacation. We have tried out the method quite extensively now in different contexts: adult learning, upper secondary school, lower secondary school and primary school, and now it was time to make some adjustments in instructions and evaluation forms. New material will soon be published.

We had a long and exciting day in Åmli in February, where John Petter gave several lectures, first for the youths in school, then for teachers at the school and finally for parents. One of his messages was that some times in life, everything is not okay, and it is important to accept that this is the way it is. One cannot always be happy, and some times things happen so we have to feel some pain. Then, it is important to see what you actually can do to make things change, what next step to take. The audience were satisfied with the evening, and some teachers have already started working with the method in classes. We look forward to continued cooperation.

In Januar, the motivation project was presented at another IAFOR conference, this time in Honolulu. Many were interested in the project, and we made new connections. From Peru, we had data from as much as 15 groups, as the method is spreading quickly there, and this is perhaps not so surprising when we look at the results. Publications in the project are updated under “research”.

In April 2019, everything started when Toril Espegren, teacher at Birkenes Learning Centre, brought the motivation method to a school in Peru, and from there it has spread to several schools through another person from Norway who works in Peru currently (for Lutheran Missinary Association). So far, around 400 students in Peru have tried the method. What the students report in their evaluations is very positive, they are satisfied with the method and experience increased motivation and that they become better at planning. Also the Directorate of Education has become interested in the work, and want training of teachers to try out the method in a region.

Close to 50 people gathered to our conference, again a diverse group of people with representatives from schools and the health sector. There were school employees from around 10 schools and psychologists from several municipalities, and representatives from UiA, from Blå Kors and other interested. There was a high quality on the presentations, and some of these are found here (in Norwegian).

Wilson, Poulsen, Rosef & Ugland, Paschen-Eriksen

The autumn 2019 the county governors chose to give courses in the fivestep motivation method on their regular event in October, and many teachers were interested in our work. We gave two courses, and there were about 60 participants in each session. We even had to find extra chairs for the second session, and this is always a good sign. We’re looking forward to further development of the project and cooperation with more adult learning centres.

We sent an idea to this year’s competition at IMDi’s regional conference about how to improve the quality of the qualification work the municipalities offer refugees. The idea was called “The participant at the centre – increased user participation in work with individual plan”, and was sent in by Birkenes municipality represented by May Olaug Horverak, principal at the adult learning centre, Maria Bjerke Dalene from the refugee services and Inger Mosgren from NAV, in cooperation with Kedir Diary, social worker at Lillesand adult learning centre.

The idea is that the participants in the introduction programme for refugees bring the reflections they do at school when working with the motivation method, to their meetings with the refugee services and NAV, and that these reflections are used actively when developing and adjusting individual plans. This way, the participants are more at the centre of planning their own lives, and at the same time, it can contribute to a common understanding of the participants. In the evaluation from the jury, it was emphasised that we worked thoroughly and systematically in our project, and that we build on theory from several disciplines to find a solution to something that has been a challenge for a long time in work with qualification of refugees, i.e. the work with individual plans. We really appreciate this recognition we have received from IMDi, and hope that we will succeed with realising our idea in real life.