Teaching and student welfare go hand in hand in the school community’s daily life, and welfare work is an integral part of the job description of every adult working with pupils. Student welfare promotes the participation, well-being and safety of both individual pupils and the entire school community. To enable children and young people who have fled Ukraine to begin in basic education, a joint discussion on the school community’s operating practices is required and the practices must be reviewed if necessary. Provisions on student welfare are laid down in the Pupil and Student Welfare Act and its practical implementation is described in the school welfare plan.
Poika miettii tietokoneen ääressä
Photo: Satu Haavisto

The safe everyday life at school with its routines and interactions is integrative for students. It is therefore essential that the children and young people arriving in Finland are provided with an opportunity to go to school and receive student welfare services as quickly as possible.  Engaging in the everyday life of the school and becoming part of the community strengthen the pupil's experience of continuity and sense of safety also in situations where they have been shaken. 

Communal student welfare services are the primary way of implementing student welfare and a joint effort of the staff working in the school. Communal work is by nature preventative and also reduces the need for individual support in the long-term. Communal work promotes both the learning and well-being of pupils and the good interaction, togetherness and safety of the entire community. 

Communal student welfare means the daily looking after of pupils’ and the whole community’s well-being. It is the most effective when the teaching staff implements it as part of the teaching and the professionals of student welfare services as communal work. When a pupil fleeing war arrives in the school community, the practices are agreed on together. The pupil’s arrival in the school community requires agreement on the community’s practices. It is important that all adults ensure that also the newcomers find their place in the community and the class and no one is left on their own.  

The school community does not tolerate bullying, violence, discrimination or racism. Inappropriate behaviour is intervened in immediately. The measures that prevent and reduce these unwanted phenomena and taking care of the school's preparedness to act in different problem and crisis situations are part of communal student welfare. 

The school’s student welfare work as a whole is guided by the school welfare plan. The plan is a living document that is updated when necessary. Changes in the school environment may affect the need to review, for example, the assessment of the overall need for student welfare or the allocation of resources for student welfare services in the school, which is part of the school welfare plan. 
 

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The school welfare group takes care of communal student welfare as a whole and promotes the healthiness, well-being and safety of the school community. The group’s task is extensive and includes the planning, development, implementation and assessment of student welfare. For example, the group may discuss information about well-being in the school or the atmosphere, dynamics or disciplinary climate in a certain group at a general level. The multiprofessional group consists of both professionals responsible for teaching and those responsible for student welfare services. Representatives of pupils and guardians participate in the group’s work and, if necessary, cooperation parties external to the educational institution can also be invited to join the work. The multiprofessional approach provides different perspectives and the required special expertise to the group’s work.

When the circumstances change, new cooperation partners such as non-governmental organisations, parties responsible for leisure time activities or youth services, and parishes may be needed by the school in addition to the familiar student welfare services. The communities of people with an immigration background offer important peer support that the newcomers also need to take advantage of. Because children and young people should quickly become part of the interaction network of the school, the forming of friendships and communal and participatory practices should be actively supported. Play and games during recesses, club activities or the school’s afternoon club help children and young people both develop their language proficiency and cope with challenging phases and losses. 
 

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Some of the children and young people need individual support that must be organised as soon as possible. Children and young people have a statutory right to individual student welfare. Individual student welfare means the school health services, psychologist and social worker services, and multidisciplinary individual student welfare given to an individual pupil. The municipality that the school is located in is responsible for organising the student welfare services.

Individual student welfare is always voluntary for the pupil, and different professionals participate in the work if consent to it has been given. Consent is given either by the pupil or their guardian, depending on the pupil’s age and development level. With small schoolchildren, the guardian's consent is usually required. If necessary, interpretation services must be used in individual student welfare. 
The pupil has the right to psychologist or school social worker services within the prescribed time limit. This means that the pupil is offered the opportunity to have a personal conversation with either a psychologist or a school social worker no later than on the seventh school day and, in urgent cases, on the same or the following day. The psychologist or the school social worker assesses the urgency of the matter. 

Determining the pupil’s need for support from student welfare services and organising it often requires cooperation between the teaching staff and the actors in student welfare services. The multidisciplinary expert group is built on a case-by-case basis to support the pupil when the expertise of professionals of different fields is required for early examination and taking care of the pupil’s matter, and especially when cooperation between the teaching staff and student welfare services is required and their expertise needs to be combined. The group’s work is based on consent from the pupil or the guardian and the composition of the group is agreed on a case-by-case basis. Entries regarding this work are recorded in the student welfare register maintained by the education provider.

Teachers and the school’s other personnel participate in the multidisciplinary student welfare work together with the professionals of student welfare services.  Because the teacher has a vantage point for monitoring the individual learning and well-being of every pupil, the teacher's role in early identification and organising the support is important. The organisation of support is guided by the individual needs, capabilities and resources of the children, young people and families. When the need for support is determined, multidisciplinary cooperation is required in addition to the teacher’s observations. Cooperation with guardians is valuable also because the guardians have knowledge of the pupil's earlier growth, development and learning.

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Offering multidisciplinary support requires cooperation and practices that have been agreed in advance jointly with the professionals of the services and with services outside the school. 

Especially children and young people who have arrived in Finland unattended may be so traumatised that the school’s own student welfare services cannot provide sufficient support for them. Having been separated from their parents, they may be extremely worried about the parents and it will take time before their sense of safety and stability returns. Cooperation with parties outside the school, such as the family counselling centre, specialist medical care or child welfare, is often required. If the child, young person or family needs support from child welfare, they have the same right to get it as everyone else. All children living in Finland are protected under the same Child Welfare Act.
 

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The pupil’s right to student welfare services is one of the special features of the Finnish education system and new to the schoolchildren arriving in Finland and their guardians. This is why information about the operation of student welfare, the pupil’s rights, the available student welfare services and communal student welfare must be provided to both pupils and their guardians.

The comprehensibility of the messages makes effective interaction possible. If necessary, interpretation services must be used in all communication. Using the school’s electronic communication channels is part of everyday life to us, but the guardians who have just arrived in the country must be given guidance on the different ways of keeping contact and the tools used for it.
 

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