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Trude Havik

Trude Havik, PhD in special education, is an associate professor at the Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education, University of Stavanger. Her research work is about school non-attendance, and related topics like classroom interactions, learning environment, bullying, and school engagement. She teach at different levels, work in partnership with schools and municipalities, lectures and participate in the public debate about school and related topics.

Jo Magne Ingul
Jo works as an Associate professor at the Regional center for child and youth mental health at the Norwegian university of science and technology (NTNU). He is into research that covers emotional problems in children and youth including school attendance problems. He hold a PhD in Clinical Psychology.

Information in the menus below was updated in November 2021. To contribute information that may be of interest to others in your country, please contact your country’s hosts: Trude Havik (trude.havik@uis.no) or Jo Magne Ingul (JoMagne.Ingul@helse-nordtrondelag.no).

People, groups, and organisations

For non-profit

  • Academic work:
    • Jo Magne Ingul, Associate Professor, RKBU Central Norway (Midt-Norge), Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare (Regionalt kunnskapssenter for barn og unge): jo.m.ingul@ntnu.no
    • Trude Havik, Associate Professor, Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education, University of Stavanger: Trude.havik@uis.no
    • Torill Larsen, Professor, HEMIL-senteret, University of Bergen. Leader of the COMPLETE project: Torill.Larsen@uib.no
    • Robin Ulriksen, Associate Professor, Handelshøyskolen BI: robin.ulriksen@bi.no
    • Ellen Kathrine Munkhaugen, Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Mental Health in Intellectual Disabilities, Oslo University Hospital: ELLMUN@ous-hf.no
    • Kristin Gärtner Askeland, Senior Researcher, Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare (RKBU Vest), NORCE Norwegian Research Center: kristin.askeland@norceresearch.no
  • Practical work:
    • Elin Solli, PPT (educational psychology service), leader of the school non-attendance team in Stavanger: elin.solli@stavanger.kommune.no
    • Anette Ruud, PPT (educational psychology service), Sarpsborg kommune.
    • PPT (educational psychology service) in Stavanger have been working on early intervention for school refusal behavior since 2004. Meetings are held once a week, and school staff who are concerned about a young person can receive advice about early interventions.
    • PPT (educational psychology service) in Sarpsborg have a school refusal team, working preventively and flexibly as soon as a student show signs or risks for absence.

For profit

  • No Isolation’s mission is to reduce involuntary loneliness and social isolation by developing communication tools that help those affected. AV1 is a telepresence robot that acts as the child’s eyes, ears and voice in the classroom. Read more.
  • 2021 December – 2025: Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Ingrid Fylling, has been granted her application to the Research Council of Norway of NOK 12 million to do research on the amount of absence and the schools’ handling of absence cases. The project starts on 1 December 2021 and lasts until 2025. Schools in three municipalities (Vestland, Trøndelag and Nordland) have been selected, and the research will cover 5th to 7th grades. A total of twelve researchers from Nord University, Nordland Research, NTNU, the University of Bergen as well as Aarhus and Gothenburg are part of the project called “School absence in Norwegian primary schools – institutional understandings and responses”. Read more here (in Norwegian).
  • The Nordic Erasmus+ project on, Problematic School Absenteeism – Improving Systems and Tools, provides an overview of existing definitions and theories about school absenteeism. It also attempts to determine definitions and frames of understanding overlooked in the literature/research. The outcome is to arrive at common denominators and frames of understanding within and across the Nordic countries. Read the Report here.
  • 2021 November 10: The second Nordic Conference on School Absenteeism – How to Map, Treat and Target Absence among Students? More information and presentations here.
  • 2020 April – ongoing: A research project about teachers’ perceptions of home school for students grade 5-10 with a School Attendance Problem (Jo Magne Ingul and Trude Havik).
  • 2020-2023: ‘Problematic School Absence – Improving Systems and Tools’: Project founded with multiple beneficiaries under the ERASMUS+ Programme (project identification 2019-1-NO01-KA201-060317). The project is found relevant for the Action – supporting educators and tackling early school leaving and disadvantage in Erasmus. This project is coordinated by Statped (Norway) with the partner organisation Valteri (Finland), Magelungen Utveckling (Sweden), Aarhus municipality and Aarhus University (Denmark). The partners aim at developing better school and government guidelines for municipalities and schools within the Nordic countries by targeting the challenges of school absence using innovative and knowledge-based actions that prevent the development of problematic school absence and follow up children at risk of dropping out of school. The project’s activities focus on promoting a more inclusive school system by focusing on meeting pupils with more individually tailored guidelines and treatment. A joint document will be developed describing how new evidence from practice and research should be implemented in national guidelines and school practice. For information please contact Robin Ulriksen.
  • 2020-2021: Pilot in public schools in Nittedal: ‘Community and schools to start using a multi-tiered model for attendance and absenteeism’: The local government of Nittedal is working with Robin Ulriksen (Statped) to implement a model for promoting school attendance and preventing absenteeism. The project aims at targeting children and youth at risk of developing problematic school absence, with established problematic absenteeism and those not in school. The model includes a municipality system of absence monitoring, teacher screening pupils at risk and measures of action at local government and school level. The multi-tiered model attends to the needs of youth at risk for absenteeism as well as those with established school attendance problems. ‘Dream Teams’ in the community and in schools make use of data from attendance monitoring systems and teachers who screen for risk. Training for school professionals is included in the model. This model will be piloted in public schools in Nittedal in school year 2020-2021. For information please contact Robin Ulriksen.
  • 2019 Ongoing: “Back to school”, is a small pilot study (n=4) conducted in collaboration between the Norwegian municipality Ringerike, Oslo University Hospital and Magelungen (Stockholm, Sweden). The study examines the feasibility of a multimodal, manual based treatment program carried out by a local multidisciplinary team. The treatment program is delivered by a local team which works closely with the children, the parents and the teachers both in their homes, in the schools and at alternative arenas. The consultants from Oslo University Hospital work together with the team and provide supervision on a weekly basis. The pilot project was not conducted as planned due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Evaluation of the pilot study showed that two of the four students with severe school refusal behavior were re-engaged in school at the end of the project period of 12 months. The manual based program “Hemmasittare programmet” was considered as an appropriate framework by the local team. However, several obstacles were identified; unclear organization and mandate of the local team, and limited competence within the team to perform and coordinate the treatment process. The evaluation report is available in Norwegian. For more information please contact Ellen Kathrine Munkhaugen, ellmun@ous-hf.no or Ulla I. Hansen hanul@ous-hf.no
  • 2019 December – Ongoing: Established a Norwegian network on school non-attendance. Steering group: Kristin Gärtner Askeland, Jo Magne Ingul and Trude Havik. Mission: Collaboration and coordination of projects, organizations and disciplines working with school absenteeism in Norway. First network meeting will be fall 2020. More information is coming.
  • 2019 September – Ongoing: pre-study in two parts of Norway: Trøndelag and Rogaland. On the Frontline” is a feasibility study of the school-based framework presented in ‘Emerging school refusal: A school-based framework for identifying early signs and risk factors’ (Ingul, Havik, & Heyne, 2018). The project will be conducted in various countries from 2021. For more information, see the brochure or contact Jo Magne Ingul or Trude Havik
  • “Academic functioning and high school dropout: The interplay of risk and protective factors.” This is a project investigating how adolescent depression, and individual, familial and social protective factors are associated with academic grades, absenteeism, and dropout from high school. A central goal is to compare the influence of different protective factors to identify which protective factors are the most important. This could form the basis for preventive interventions targeting adolescents. Information, contact Kristin Askeland.
  • 2018 Ongoing: INSchool – About high school dropout (University of Stavanger). Norway has a higher school dropout rate than the average for the OECD countries, and less than 60 percent complete upper secondary school within the specified time.
  • 2016-2020: “Reducing absence in upper secondary education”. This is a project to reduce absence in upper secondary school in the northern part of Norway. It investigates the effect of a school-based monitoring program aimed at students at high risk for developing school absenteeism. The reduce absence model (RA-model) is based on early follow up of students with risk of developing high non-attendance in upper secondary education. The model aims to identify students with high non-attendance in lower secondary education, investigate what challenges they have that influence their non-attendance, and monitor and support their attendance for the first year in upper secondary education. The target student will get assigned to a school counselor who will focus on promoting the students’ engagement and autonomy in the process of getting help related to their school situation and defined needs. The study will also investigate the effects of the program between students with different needs and underlying challenges. For information please contact Robin Ulriksen.
  • 2016-2019: “COMPLETE” to reduce absence in upper secondary education. This is a research project to develop a psychosocial learning environment in upper secondary schools. The project involves implementing and evaluating the effect of two programs that will facilitate the good psychosocial learning environment: Drømmeskolen and Nærværsteam. The project is a cooperation between UiB, Nordland, Troms, Sogn and Fjordane and Hordaland, Oxford Research, Nordlandsforskning, the organization Voksne for Barn and nærværsteamet Bodin upper secondary school in Bodø. Seventeen schools are participating.
  • 2019: Ellen K Munkhaugen finished her PhD titled “School refusal behaviour in students with autism spectrum disorder, an exploratory study of frequency and associated factors”.
  • 2015: Trude Havik completed her PhD dissertation on the subject of ‘School role in school refusal’, based on parent interviews and student surveys.
  • 2014: Jo Magne Ingul completed his PhD dissertation on the subject ‘Anxiety and social phobia in Norwegian adolescents: Studies of risk factors, school absenteeism and treatment effects’
  • Videos from Stavanger municipality (information about school refusal for parents and youths): here and here.
  • Webpages, information and resources about school non-attendance and ADHD, Tourette, and autism here.
  • Conceptual analyses article: Havik, T. & Ingul, J.M. (2021). How to Understand School Refusal. Frontiers in Education.
  • Norwegian regulations regarding school absence (Utdanningsdirektoratet)
  • 2020: Amundsen, M-L., Herrebrøden, M., Mjøberg, A.G., & Rosenberg, C. (2020). Skolens møte med elever som strever med skolevegring. Psykologi i kommunen nr. 2 2020
  • 2019: Amundsen, M-L. (2019). Når skolen svikter. Psykologi i kommunen. ISSN 1892-3364.64(7).
  • 2017: Heimonen, Aaboen Sletten, Tøge, Gyüre, Borg, Alves (2017). The Cluster-randomized Evaluation of the IKO-model (IKO). Systematisk frafallsforebygging i videregående skole – en evaluering med klyngerandomisert design: Andre underveisrapport 2.
  • Absence rates
  • Projects
    • Glidelåsen (“Zipper project”) (marstr2@randabergskolen.no) is a pilot project about the transition from primary school to high school in one municipality (Randaberg) and Rogaland Fylkeskommune (Rogaland County Council). Interdisciplinary system collaboration to ensure that students complete an ordinary secondary education course. They are following 34 students in 3-5 years. Contact person: Mariann Straume Glidelåsen (based on the pilot from one municipality described above): Rogaland Fylkeskommune (Rogaland County Council) and 10 municipalities, to ensure students compete an ordinary secondary education course. Contact person: Randi Thorsen Vatnamot
    • Flying start: summer-course before entering upper secondary school – to learn to know the school, meet some of the teachers and peers – Rogaland Fylkeskommune.
    • Drømmeskolen (“Dream school”), a model to work systematically with the psychosocial environment in lower and upper secondary schools, from a health promoting perspective.
    • 2011 Ongoing: ‘Utvidet skolehelsetjeneste’ in Upper Secondary Schools, has been running in the northern parts of Trøndelag, Norway, since 2011. Here clinical psychologists and psychiatrists from the local child and adolescent mental health unit at Levanger and Namsos Hospital work one day a week at their local upper secondary school. They see adolescents with mental health problems, but also advise teachers and others at the school (e.g., school nurse, educational services) who are part of the school’s attendance team. The main aim of the project is to identify students in need of help as soon as possible, and to coordinate this help so that the students receive appropriate help (whether it is psychological, educational, or social) when they need it. This hopefully leads to improved quality of life and lower rates of dropout from school. Contact person: Jo Magne Ingul.
    • 2001 Ongoing: MOTPOL (Bergen): Motpol has a history since 2001 for students struggling with school attendance. It is a group offer for students with anxiety or other reasons for serious not attending school, usually defined as school refusal. Students could also be truant of boycott teaching.
    • LOS for youth with school refusal (Tromsø): The LOS-project is for youth between the age of 13-16, for them to complete school and to improve school well-being
    • SNT – School attendance team (Skolenærværsteam) in Bergen: The background for this project is when working with school non-attendance; the help often are given too late. This is a preventive approach at lowest level (tier 1); what to do when the child are still in school. It is a cooperation project between child, parents, school, educational-psychologic service and health care. In this way, we give early intervention and have the child’s voice in focus to give the right type of measures. For more info, please contact: Annett Lyngtu and Marion Bjørgan.
    • Tackl- MAKING KIDS FEEL BETTER. Improving mental health through serious games
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