Discussion of effective working methods both in the field of education and psychological and social services became an important topic in late 1990-ies, mostly as a result of evidence-based medicine movement (see Doherty, 2005 for an introduction to its history). It was soon understood that looking at efficacy of methods drawn apart from their real-life context was not fruitful, and since then it has remained unsolved what kind of criteria should be set for effectiveness studies in the field of education and how their results should be interpreted in the complex context of school systems that are different from where some single study was originally conducted.

Student welfare refers to a support system that many countries have but that differs a lot from country to country even within Europe.  Many countries have special education teachers, school psychologists, social workers and nurses but it varies a lot whether they are located in school buildings and whether they build a team that systematically concentrates on each pupils’ welfare (see Anthun & Manger, 2006 for a Norwegian perspective).  In that matter Finland can be seen as a good example, as systematic student welfare is defined by legislation. However the need of student welfare services seems to be increasing all the time. In Finland over 20 % of pupils receive special education at least part-time (Lintuvuori, 2010), and there is a constant press in increasing other student welfare personnel’s workload. 

One way to gain better accessibility to the expertise of student welfare personnel is consultation, in which teachers have the main responsibility of applying an intervention under supervision of a school psychologist or a social worker. Consultative approaches have given promising results in Canada for instance (Sladeczek, 2003), but a systematic review of effectiveness of consultative methods has not been done from the perspective of European practice.  Consultative approaches have lately got a greater emphasis in Finland as a result of the new Special education strategy (Ministry of Education, 2007) and changes in educational legislation (Basic Education Act, Section 4, 16-17a§). The segregation of general education and special education has been replaced by a three-tiered model of intensifying support, the emphasis being on early detection and prevention achieved by multiprofessional co-operation and continuous assessment (The National Board of Education, 2010).

The aim of this study is to first conduct a systematic review on effectiveness literature of consultative methods in student welfare. It is then evaluated by examining Finnish municipal documents of organization of student welfare of what really are the prerequisites and possibilities of consultative student welfare work in schools. 

Research questions:

1.    Based on effectiveness studies of consultation and indirect psychological work in school settings, is consultation an effective way to increase accessibility of student welfare services?
2.    How do ideology and reality meet? How is student welfare defined in documents of Finnish municipalities and how does it relate to the situation in other European countries?

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