Early school leaving (ESL) in the EU is recognized as an urgent and serious problem, both for individuals and society as a whole. The Europe 2020 strategy therefore includes the headline target to reduce percent of early school leavers to less than 10% by 2020. Although a lot of efforts to tackle ESL at the EU level and at the level of EU member states have been already done, European Commission (2012) highlighted that the EU is not on track to meet the headline target regarding ESL till 2020. On that basis the Education Council (2011) recommended the development of framework for coherent, comprehensive cross-sectoral strategies against ESL, which would provide a range of school-wide and systemic policies targeting the different factors leading to ESL. In that framework promotion and support to multi-professional partnership in schools has been recognized as a special promising solution for preventing and tackling ESL at the EU level.

Although initiatives of the European institutions increasingly promote development of cross-sectoral strategies, the theoretical dispositions (e.g. Gray and Wood, 1991; Bryson et al., 2006; Rayner and Howlett, 2009; Soininen, 2014) show that success of cross-sectoral approaches in practice is not self-evident. To be effective, cross-sectoral approaches should be supported by scientific and research insights at their formation, implementation and evaluation stage, but authors (e.g. Edwards and Downes, 2013) agree that empirical evidence in this field is still missing.

The research question addressed in this paper – “How scientific insights could help policy and practice deliver innovative multi-professional partnerships as an effective strategy for tackling ESL?” – has not yet been satisfactorily answered. The basic objective of the paper is to fill this research gap by providing an innovative research framework, which would support practitioners and policy makers in forming, implementing and evaluating multi-professional partnerships in schools in order to prevent and tackle ESL with the case study of the EU policy experimentation project TITA (Team cooperation to fight early school leaving: training, innovative tools and actions) (http://titaproject.eu/). Within the project comprehensive scientific base has been created in order to support practitioners (education staff) in consortium (France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain, Slovenia) and other European countries in implementing local and multi-professional partnerships in schools to tackle ESL. To work on ESL with other professionals and to set up student-centred measures, education staff needs to understand not only ESL, but also basic principles of multi-professional cooperation and develop or strengthen special skills. Therefore TITA comprehensive scientific base provides an in depth evidence-based understanding of: a) ESL (as an important policy problem of contemporary EU society); b) cooperation at the system level, at the local-community level and at the level of multi-professional teams in schools (as a promising solution to reducing ESL) and c) training for effective multi-professional cooperation (as a tool for coming to the solution). By promoting and supporting multi-professional school teams in schools, it provides scientific support, tools for actions and training for addressing ESL.

In this paper we present:  a) the main findings of the comprehensive scientific literature review about conditions of effective multi-professional cooperation at different (e.g. national, local and school) levels with special emphasis on partnerships in multi-professional teams in schools and b) first results of the evaluation of the TITA policy experimentation.

Bryson, John M., Barbara C. Crosby, and Melissa Middleton Stone (2006). The Design and Implementation of Cross-Sector Collaborations: Propositions from the Literature. Public Administration Review, 66, 44–55. Council of the European Union (2011). Council Recommendation on policies to reduce early school leaving. Brussels: Council of the European Union. Dale, Roger (2010). Early school leaving. Lessons from research for policy makers. An independent expert report submitted to the European Commission. Brussels: network of experts in social sciences of education and training. D’Amour D, Ferrada-Videla M, San Martin Rodriguez L, and Beaulieu MD. (2005) The conceptual basis for interprofessional collaboration: core concepts and theoretical frameworks. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 19(1), 116–131. Edwards, Anne and Downes, Paul (2013). Alliances for Inclusion cross-sector policy synergies and interprofessional collaboration in and around schools. An independent report authored for the European Commission. Brussels: Network of Experts on Social Aspects of Education and Training. European Commission (2007). Commission Staff Working Document. Towards more knowledge-based policy and practice in education and training. Brussels: European Commission. European Commission (2011). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Tackling early school leaving: A key contribution to the Europe 2020 Agenda. Brussels: European Commission. European Parliament (2011). Study on Reducing Early School Leaving in the EU. Brussels: European Parliament. Gray, Barbara, and Donna J. Wood (1991). Collaborative Alliances: Moving from Practice to Theory. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 27(1): 3–22. Hood, Jacqueline N., Jeanne M. Logsdon, and Judith Kenner Thompson (1993). Collaboration for Social Problem Solving: A Process Model. Business & Society, 32(1): 1–17. Mullen, Carol A., and Dale H. Schunk (2011). The Role of the Professional Learning Community in Dropout Prevention. AASA Journal of Scholarship & Practice, 8(3), 26–29. Rayner, Jeremy, and Michael Howlett (2009). Introduction: Understanding integrated policy strategies and their evolution. Policy and Society 28, 99-109. Soininen, Maritta (2014). The Problem of Mismatch in Successful Cross-Sectoral Collaboration. Politics and Governance 2(2), 43-56. Thematic Working Group on Early School Leaving (2013). Reducing early school leaving: Key messages and policy support. Brussels: European Commission.