Samarbejde mellem folkeskolelærere og PPR-psykologer – Oplevelser og implikationer for praksis
In Denmark, the institution PPR employs psychologists, speech-therapists, physio-therapists and more, who are tasked with aiding schools when pupils experience difficulties. Most commonly, this aid takes the form of consultation with the child’s parents and the school’s personnel, including teachers and pedagogues. This project aims to examine the nature of the teamwork between the PPR psychologists and the teachers through interviews with both of these professions. Through a literature review, several previous findings concerning the sub-ject emerge. Previous literature describes frustration, disagreement and discrepan-cies between the two professions, and this project explores these themes through the professionals’ experiences of teamwork with the other, and what they believe could improve their relation. In total, nine interviews are conducted, five with psychologists, four with teachers, employed in different parts of the country. These interviews are coded using thematic analysis, and four major themes emerge: The roles of the profes-sionals, approach to the teamwork, proximity to practice, and framework for the teamwork. The themes are analyzed using Gittell’s theory on relational coordina-tion, Luhmann’s systems theory, and positioning theory. The analysis shows, in accordance with previous literature, that disagree-ments and frustrations are common. For one, both parties sometimes feel their role is misunderstood by the other, as teachers feel psychologists don’t always grasp the reality of teaching a classroom full of students, and psychologists feel the teachers don’t know exactly how and when to bring the psychologists into play. Both profes-sions express a want to work with more preventive measures, where teachers can approach the psychologists with smaller worries, though some psychologists are concerned this will lead to an even bigger workload than they already experience. Teachers also carry a heavy workload, and therefore often want the psychologist to give specific advice instead of general advice on what to do, or even move the child in question to a special needs class, despite the psychologists’ wishing to attempt other interventions first. All in all, the project has implications for teachers and psychologists, as well as headmasters of schools and managers of PPR. Teachers and psychologists, who wish to improve their teamwork, could have an increased focus on explaining what they can and cannot do, to better a common understanding of the possibilities the teamwork provides. This can also be a task for the managers and headmasters, who have a wider reach, and thus more efficiently can clarify the other profession’s role. The teamwork could also benefit from allocating more time for the two pro-fessions to discuss preventive action as well as ongoing initiatives, although both professions already are short on time, and which therefore calls on more resources.