About the project
The project is based on the theoretical and practical content of the Tuning in to Kids parenting guidance program, but largely adapted to the frameworks in place for dealing with emotional competency in a school setting. School staff will receive an introduction to
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What emotional competence is, or the ability to recognise and understand one's own and others' feelings, and the ability to handle and express one's own feelings in a situationally and culturally adequate way.
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How emotional competence correlates with social and academic proficiency. We emphasize that emotional competence should be seen as a basic skill, on par with, for example, reading, writing and arithmetic, as being able to handle emotions is a prerequisite for learning.
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Emotion guidance, which is an approach to how adults can best meet children's emotional needs in a guiding and developmental way
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Meta-emotions, or how experiences from one's own upbringing will affect how you as an adult will understand, encounter and deal with the emotional expressions and needs of others
The guidance is practice-oriented, uses a lot of role-playing, and bases the theoretical content in situations that teachers bring into the guidance.
The intervention is universal, in that it is implemented with a non-selected portion of the teaching population in each school. Still, it’s reasonable to expect that the intervention's content will have a somewhat more sharpened target, as the content of TIKiS is especially relevant for students with more challenges than most, where teachers particularly need good tools both to create good relationships in general, and to specifically handle challenging situations.
Research on TIKiS
Previous Evaluation Work
The work of translating, developing and implementing TIKiS started at the Psychological Institute, UiO, under the leadership of Evalill Bølstad and in collaboration with Frederik Ferstad Skoe in the school health service department Frogner in the school year 2018/2019. Subsequently, a pilot was carried out in collaboration with the low-threshold service "Everyone has a mental health" in the districts of Grorud and Stovner, where the teachers filled out questionnaires before and after participation. In the Stovner district, we conducted CLASS observations before and after participation, in addition to the survey. The pilot investigation showed good results, with a significant increase in positive classroom climate and less use of emotion-avoiding responses among the teachers after the TIKiS program was completed (Bølstad et al., 2022).
Ongoing research
A larger research study is now underway where Oslo municipality is the project owner and the project is led by Associate Professor Evalill Bølstad at the University of Oslo. The project is a collaboration between the Education Department, the Health Department, districts and the University of Oslo. 20 schools will participate in the research intervention, where 10 will be selected as intervention schools, and 10 as control schools. This study will consist of pre- and post-measurements from questionnaires and CLASS observations, as well as an evaluation of the implementation and collaboration processes around the project.
How can I express interest in participating in the TIKiS study?
There is still an opportunity to express interest in participating in the TIKiS study. Schools wishing to participate will then be drawn to either be an intervention school or control school in the school year 2024/2025. Schools drawn as control schools will be offered participation in the following school year (2025/2026).
Principals who are interested in getting more information regarding participation can send an email to project coordinator Frederik Ferstad Skoe, or to project leader Evalill Bølstad. The school must belong to Oslo municipality and must not have previously participated in TIKiS.