"The politicians in Westminster are listening to the people at the Thomas Coram Research Unit in London. The message is unequivocal. It is time to learn from social pedagogical approaches to working with looked-after children in other European countries. Why is this? The government wants to prepare an early years professional who can combine the skills of a social worker with those of an educator. Based on case studies of successful approaches to improving the well-being of looked-after children in Denmark, France and Germany, the Thomas Coram researchers have found a child care professional who can pull this off: the social pedagogue," wrote P. Stephens and colleagues, University of Stavanger.
The researchers concluded: "As a professor of social pedagogy in a Norwegian university that educates social pedagogues, I want to shed light on a discipline that might help British stakeholders in child care settings to draw selective lessons from a promising Nordic model."
Stephens and colleagues published the results of their research in Child & Family Social Work (The nature of social pedagogy: an excursion in Norwegian territory. Child & Family Social Work, 2009;14(3):343-351).
For additional information, contact P. Stephens, University of Stavanger, Faculty Social Science, N-4036 Stavanger, Norway.
The publisher of the journal Child & Family Social Work can be contacted at: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc., Commerce Place, 350 Main St., Malden 02148, MA, USA.
