Collaboration and integration of services in Greek special schools: two different models of delivering school services

Abstract

Multidisciplinary collaboration is considered to be very important for the education of pupils with special educational needs and particularly those pupils with the most severe disabilities. This research adopts a multiple case-study design in order to understand collaboration and the integration of services and the effectiveness of these among pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) in Greece. The teams, choosing case studies in five special schools, considered 10 pupils and their parents. Reviews and analyses of the legislation; the use of diaries; participant observations and semi-structured interviews were used for the collection of data. Two different models of service integration which provide different opportunities to the inclusion of pupils with PMLD were revealed since schools have different methods of integrating health and social professionals. In the first model, the school works with outside services, whereas in the second, services are within the school. In addition, roles and responsibilities differ within the different models. Service integration and collaboration were found to be more effective in schools where teachers and health and social professionals work under the same management. The study suggests the expansion of the second model of multidisciplinary collaboration with the integration in schools of health therapists, educational psychologists and social workers. IntroductionThis research study is concerned with the ways in which teachers, parents and health and social professionals collaborate for the education of pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) in Greek special schools. In particular, we are interested in the process of collaboration between professionals from different disciplines and the effectiveness of their collaboration with respect to the way in which services are integrated in schools. The integration of services is mainly connected with their organisation in the school in terms of the different working relationships between professionals and the consequences of these relationships to collaboration. We consider that the different approaches to service integration in schools provide

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