Suchergebnisse

This report presents the final evaluation of a project called: "Sammen for barn og unge – bedre samordning av tjenester til utsatte barn og unge.» Norwegian Social research (NOVA) was commissioned by The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS) and The Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion (BLD) who stood behind the project. The basic idea has been that the various local authorities involved in assisting children and youth at risk, have to have well coordinated and functional ways of collaborating, if they are to offer the aid the youngsters need. The main goal of the project has been to develop functional models for interdisciplinary collaboration at the local level. These models can serve as inspiration and guides for other municipalities and be developed further. The three year project, started in the end of 2008, has supported fifteen selected municipalities in their efforts to develop good interdisciplinary models for such collaboration. In addition to financial support the participating municipalities received assistance in their efforts to raise the level of competence, internal control, secure support from administration and amongst the employees, clarify placement of responsibility and improve the quality of meetings etc. Each municipality tried out their own version of an interdisciplinary collaborative model. Some models had a narrow scope, while others included virtually all the local authorities that are involved with children and youth. The present evaluation includes six of the fifteen municipalities. These are: Haram, Harstad, Moss, Risør, Bærum and Fet. They were chosen to illustrate the variation in size and geographical location amongst the participating municipalities. Elaborate descriptions of the models are available online at: http://www.ks.no/Sammen-for-barn-og-unge The municipality of Harstad had a model that included a wide scope of participants; the public health centers, school health services, child welfare services, mental health care services, psychiatric services for children and youth, police, nursery schools, schools and The Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration. They established an interdisciplinary "preventive" forum that played a central role in their local project. The forum worked with improving cooperation between the involved stakeholders and the implementation of a handbook in collaboration, was important. Haram had a program that included several developmental projects. They targeted the organization, management and structural aspects in the municipality. A key partner in their developmental efforts was the office "Tiltakstjenester for barn og unge", which included local health centers, child welfare services and the educational – psychological services. They also worked with other agencies, local and governmental. The municipality of Risør based their project on a previous one that had targeted youth at risk of becoming addicted to drugs. In their project they intended to coordinate the services for children and young adults, and developed a model for coordinating local measures to prevent crime, called the SLT- model - to strengthen primary preventive action. The development of a guidebook was central in their work. All services connected with children and young people are potential partners in their model. Moss had a model that aimed at implementing an overall childhood plan. The project was organized through the establishment of interdisciplinary teams in three city districts. The teams work with cases at the system level. Fet participated with a model where the interdisciplinary groups were organized around each school and childcare center. There are three main elements in their model. One is a resource team, in which an educational- psychological professional is added to the unit's own group. The second are interdisciplinary groups, consisting of the unit leader, an educational- psychological resource, Child Welfare Services, school nurse and the resource team. The interdisciplinary group visits the schools and child care centers every 4-6 weeks. The third is a coordinating working committee. The members of the committee are the leaders of each of the units that work with children and youth. Participating in the project are the health services, the educational- psychological services, Child Welfare Services and the coordinator for interdisciplinary collaboration for children and youth. During the project period this municipality also collaborated with Oslo University College on teaching 80 employees about interdisciplinary interaction. Bærum participated with a model that consisted of collaboration between the Child Welfare Services and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. They have focused on developing their joint expertise and intensifying the collaboration between ten employees in each of the two services. They intend to transfer their good experiences to other collaborative constellations. While they were developing their competences, they also worked together on cases that involved other agencies. Network meetings and kickoffs were essential to getting the interaction started. The aim of the evaluation has been to evaluate and describe changes in the interdisciplinary and interdepartmental collaboration during the project period. Only 14-18 months passed between the first and second collection of data, which limits the likelihood of there having been any major changes in the municipalities. Organizations take time to change, and a year and a half is a short time in this respect. Municipalities usually also have several projects going on at the same time, which makes it difficult to know what is caused by which process. In our evaluation we have looked at criteria that characterize good types of cooperation. Amongst these are; regular meetings, clear allocation of responsibility, formalized routines, management follow-up and the correct skills and knowledge. Other characteristics of collaborative competence are knowledge about each others routines, work practices, duty of confidentiality and informing. The intent has been to understand which processes the employees have participated in and their experiences. We collected data for the evaluation twice. The first round was in the fall of 2009 in four of the municipalities and in January 2010 in the last two municipalities. The first round consisted of individual interviews and focus groups with the employees, and also gathering information from statistics and documents. The second round was the winter / spring of 2011. In February/ March we sent an electronic questionnaire with questions about how the employees in the involved services, in all six municipalities, experienced the interdisciplinary and interdepartmental collaboration. In the spring of 2011 we did a new round of individual and group interviews. After the first round of data collection NOVA wrote a status report about how the collaboration was perceived in the municipalities. Some of the municipalities used that Paper as a basis for the continuation of their efforts and development of their models. The first stage of the study showed that there was a lot of variation between the municipalities regarding how far they had developed their models for cooperation. There were some common experiences that can be summed up as follows: The participating services overall had high level of expertise. It was challenging to get the professionals working in "the field" committed to collaboration. All the municipalities experienced that there wasn't enough time for extensive collaboration. Collaboration wasn't always useful. Many had established routines for regular meetings, but the challenge was to make them meaningful, constructive to improving the services to the clients. Several were discontent with the results of the meetings. In general improvement of cooperational skills was required. There was discontentment with how the duty of confidentiality was handled. There was a lack of knowledge about and understanding of the partner's services, responsibilities and roles. There was a need for more knowledge about one's own organization and possible offers in the municipality. There were few who knew about the project "Sammen for barn og unge" at the time of the first round of data collection. The municipalities had made some changes between the first and second round of data collection. Some of the common experiences at the end of the project can be summarized as follows: Many employees were involved in interdisciplinary cooperation. Most were aware of the importance of collaboration in creating better services for the users. Several formal routines for collaboration have been established. Within the municipalities there were differing experiences of the changes in routines. Some experienced many changes in routines, while others didn't notice that any changes. Collaborative skills had improved through courses and the practice of collaboration itself. The respondents were generally more favorable to collaboration. Several focused on collaboration, and had a better understanding of its importance. The answers show that management can improve their facilitation of collaboration. Not everybody interpreted the changes that happened as results of the project, often they focused on the changes themselves. In the second data set there were fewer differences between the municipalities with regard to how collaboration was experienced. There were large variations in the degree interdisciplinary collaboration had contributed to an increase in perceived efficiency. A main challenge has been to incorporate collaborative routines amongst all employees. Staying focused increases the chances of success, without focus a model can deteriorate easily. With time and patience many eventually succeed at having constructive meetings, even if they felt meaningless in the beginning. There was less dissatisfaction with the routines for giving feedback. (During the project a new law about the Child Services duty to give feedback to someone who made a report was passed.) Most reply that collaboration has been on the agenda for years. Those who say they do experience a difference say it's mainly due to the common platform that has been established. Obstacles to interdisciplinary collaboration can amongst other things be due to differences in professional cultures, unrealistic expectations, lack of knowledge about the others, complex routines, lack of skills needed for collaboration, limited feedback, management's insufficient prioritization etc. To overcome such obstacles it is important to grasp the attitudes, knowledge and various types of cooperation that exist. The following factors were considered important in our study: Openness: Cooperation regarding clients and the development of good relations are dependent upon inclusion of the involved parties and that sufficient and meaningful feedback is given. Meeting places: The employees appreciate joint courses and places to meet. Herein joint conferences and other get-togethers are also included. Personal relations: To make interdisciplinary cooperation work, people need to spend time getting to know each other. There is an evident need to get to know the people in the other fields and authorities, and do things together. Formal structures: are necessary to anchor the collaborative efforts. Formal structures such as meetings, contribute to enhance competence in teamwork. Thereby it becomes easier to clarify roles and premises, in addition to giving an opportunity to discuss disagreements. Management's responsibility: It is very important that the attention to cooperation and enabling of it is a management priority. Management must lay the foundation for, motivate and follow up collaborative possibilities. Collocation: Those who are located together say it contributes to strengthening cooperation and establishing collaboration. Client participation: Involving parents contributes to good results. It is especially beneficial when children, youth and parents / guardians participate throughout the whole process. Tools: Manuals and guides can be very useful tools when used. A common intranet could be used more actively for communication. ; Denne rapporten er en sluttevaluering av kommuneprosjektet Sammen for barn og unge – bedre samordning av tjenester til utsatte barn og unge. Prosjektet ble satt i gang for å prøve ut tverrfaglige samarbeidsmodeller i 15 kommuner, rettet mot barn og unge som er avhengig av flere tjenester på kommunalt nivå.NOVA har evaluert arbeidet i seks av kommunene. Evalueringen viser at det er avgjørende å ha en fast struktur på samarbeidet, med klar ansvarsfordeling og klare oppgaver. Videre må man kjenne til hverandres ansvarsområde, klargjøre forventninger, vise respekt for de ulike fagområdene, bygge opp personlige relasjoner, samt utarbeide skriftlige rutiner som sikrer gode tilbakemeldinger.

The Government White Paper on day care provision presented in December 1999 announced a three-year program to improve quality. Starting in 2001, all Norwegian day care centres were to establish tools and systems designed to further develop and safeguard the quality of day care centres. The program was to be finalised by 2003. A survey conducted at the end of the period showed that only one in five managers felt that their day care centre had attained the goals. The program to improve quality coincided with an increasing focus on strong price reductions in child care services and a commitment to make day care centres available to all families who wanted this type of child care. Since 2003, there has been a vast expansion in child care coverage rates in Norway. At the end of 2003, 205 000 children were enrolled in day care centres. By January 2008 about 265 000 children were enrolled. The biggest increase was seen for children below three, and during 2008 almost 40 000 one-year olds were enrolled in day care centres. We have compared the results from 2004 and 2008 in order to explore whether this expansion has happened at the expense of quality. On average, there are more children per day care centre in 2008 compared to 2004. This is especially true for the new centres that started up after 2004, but also the older ones have expanded. Day care centre managers are typically stable employees. More than half had managed the same day care centre for more than five years, and almost 40 percent had been in the same position for more than eight years. Since 2004 there has been a small increase in turnover of employees. In 2004, half of the day care centres reported that none of their employees had left their position within the last 6 months, while in 2008 this was reduced to 40 percent. As in 2004, the small day care centres reported the lowest turn over rates. A smaller portion of those who were educated as pre-school teachers had ended their position compared with those without such education. Ninety percent of the managers are women, and 92 percent are educated pre-school teachers. Approximately two percent have additional education. Three percent of the day care centres have managers who do not meet the educational requirement. In 14 percent of the child care centres there is at least one employee who is undertaking education to become a preschool teacher. In every fourth day care centre there is more than one preschool teacher per unit. In 16 percent of the day care centres there are at least one male pre-school teacher, and 34 percent of the day care centres had at least one male assistant. The number of day care centres with at least one male employee has increased from 33 percent in 2002 to 51 percent in 2008. The percentage of educated preschool teachers in day care centres varies a lot. In one in four day care centres 27 percent, or fewer, of the staff had preschool teacher education. In another fourth of the day care centres 43 percent, or more, were educated preschool teachers. Compared to 2004 there has not been any decrease in the proportion of preschool teachers. The proportion of preschool teachers has increased more in the private day care centres than in municipal day care centres. Nine out of ten day care centres have annual appraisal talks with their staff. Eight out of ten employ internal vocational training schemes for their staff, and more than half of the day care centres have a separate budget for such training. In this area there has been a small increase since the last evaluation in 2004. The size of the day care centre is the most decisive factor determining whether all three measures to improve the staff are set. Norwegian day care centres operate within the framework of a national curriculum (Rammeplanen). Since last survey in 2004 the number of subjects to be covered according to the national curriculum havebeen expanded from five to seven. In 2008 most day care centres emphasised the area "Communication, language and texts". Emphasis on this subject has increased steadily since 2002. Similar to what has been reported in earlier periods there was least interest for the area "Ethics, religion and philosophy". In 2008 fewer day care centres work with all areas compared to 2004, but we observed a tendency that bigger private day care centres work with more areas. The vast majority of day care centres have established formal routines for informing parents and new employees. This applies above all to what we define as «start-up information». Since 2004 the day care centres have increased their formal routines for writing down information to and from care givers. At least eight out of ten day care centres have routine parent-staff conversations, parent-staff meetings and liaison committee meetings twice a year. More day care centres employ user surveys, but not as frequent as in 2004. The existence of formal information routines depends heavily on a day care centre's size, bigger centres have more formal routines. Children's well-being and development are commonly evaluated in a traditional manner, i.e. by observation, followed by educational documentation. About half of the day care centres make little or no use of methods such as systematic conversations or interviews with children. There is however a small increase in the use of child interviews. The number of day care centres where children participate in assessment work has increased since 2002, in 2008 59 percent of the day care centres involved children in the assessment work. Children are also being drawn more and more into the process of planning the day care centre's activities, and children are now participating more than their parents in such planning. Even though participation has increased considerably there are still a high number of day care centres where there is little or no child or parental participation. The general opinion among managers is that the physical environment such as buildings and outdoor areas are satisfactory and suitably adapted for all the children in the day care centre. In 2002 every third day care centre achieved top score on this measure. In 2008 half of the day care centres did the same. This is especially true for the biggest and newest day care centres. In half of the day care centres the owners have made plans for training or post-qualifying education facilities for their staff, and two out of three are already providing such training. Municipal day care centres are still ahead of their private counterparts both in terms of planning and providing training and post-qualifying education facilities for their staff. As regards the extent of contact and collaboration between the individual day care centre and the municipality in its role as local day care centre authority, no positive change can be seen from 2002 to 2008. The contact between them is slightly lower than in earlier surveys, and we find this problematic as contact is decisive for the municipal authority in order to have control. Our survey for 2008 revealed that the municipal authority have more intensive contact with municipal day care centres than with private day care centres, which makes us question their equal treatment. Compared to 2004 there are slightly more managers who report that bullying never occurs in their day care centre in 2008. Still the majority of day care centre managers report instances of bullying during last year, but at the same time they state that this happens only very rarely. The most common method to reduce bullying is the programme entitled «You and I and the two of us», which is used by half of the day care centres. The program that has increased most since 2004 is «Step by step», this program is now used in one third of theday care centres. The measures and routines for preparing the transition between day care centres and schools have been considerably improved since last survey. Such preparations for five-year olds are now established in almost every day care centre. However, it is problematic that more measures are in place in municipal day care centres than in private day care centres. It is most common to organize day care centres in units. 80 percent of the day care centres are organised in this way, while 13 percent are not divided into units. It is most common to have units divided by age. 60 percent of the day care centres have established formal routines for assessing all the children's language development, while a third has no regular routine for doing this. Those without formal routines report they assess only children who appear to have special needs in this area. 56 percent of the day care centres have at least one child with reduced functional ability. Almost all of these get additional support in order to employ extra staff. 87 percent have established formal contact with other municipal authorities to be able to give the child maximum support. As in the two earlier surveys the day care centre managers are generally satisfied with their framework conditions. We could also find that private day care managers are more satisfied with the conditions in which they operate than the managers of municipal day care centres. Most managers state that the localities are suitable for the children and for the purpose to which they are used. This opinion is especially strong among managers of new day care centres, for big day care centres, and is even more common in private than in municipal day care centres. A joint comparison of 30 different quality indicators in 2004 and 2008 indicate that day care centres in 2008 on average get a higher score than in 2004. ; Denne rapporten er en oppfølging av to tidligere NOVA-rapporter om kvalitetssatsingen i barnehagene i årene 2001-2003. Siden den gang har arbeidet med økt kvalitet måttet skje parallelt med et stadig større fokus på full dekning og lavere barnehagepriser. Sammenlignet med år 2003 har antallet barn i barnehagene økt med 60 000 nye barn, de fleste under tre år. Hovedmålet med rapporten har vært å finne svar på hvordan denne økningen har påvirket kvaliteten sammenlignet med tidligere år. Rapporten fokuserer på barnehagenes oppfølging av rammeplanen, rutiner og arbeidsmåter, fysisk miljø, samarbeid med eier og lokal myndighet, mobbing, overgang til skole, organisering, språkstimulering og støtte til barn med ekstra behov. Undersøkelsen, som bygger på et spørreskjema til styrerne i barnehagene, viser at den sterke veksten i barnehagesektoren har funnet sted uten at det har gått på bekostning av barnehagenes kvalitet.

The Government White Paper on day care provision presented in December 1999 announced a three-year program to improve quality. Starting in 2001, all Norwegian day care centres were to establish tools and systems designed to further develop and safeguard the quality of day care centres. The program was to be finalised by 2003. A survey conducted at the end of the period showed that only one in five managers felt that their day care centre had attained the goals. The program to improve quality coincided with an increasing focus on strong price reductions in child care services and a commitment to make day care centres available to all families who wanted this type of child care. Since 2003, there has been a vast expansion in child care coverage rates in Norway. At the end of 2003, 205 000 children were enrolled in day care centres. By January 2008 about 265 000 children were enrolled. The biggest increase was seen for children below three, and during 2008 almost 40 000 one-year olds were enrolled in day care centres. We have compared the results from 2004 and 2008 in order to explore whether this expansion has happened at the expense of quality. On average, there are more children per day care centre in 2008 compared to 2004. This is especially true for the new centres that started up after 2004, but also the older ones have expanded. Day care centre managers are typically stable employees. More than half had managed the same day care centre for more than five years, and almost 40 percent had been in the same position for more than eight years. Since 2004 there has been a small increase in turnover of employees. In 2004, half of the day care centres reported that none of their employees had left their position within the last 6 months, while in 2008 this was reduced to 40 percent. As in 2004, the small day care centres reported the lowest turn over rates. A smaller portion of those who were educated as pre-school teachers had ended their position compared with those without such education. Ninety percent of the managers are women, and 92 percent are educated pre-school teachers. Approximately two percent have additional education. Three percent of the day care centres have managers who do not meet the educational requirement. In 14 percent of the child care centres there is at least one employee who is undertaking education to become a preschool teacher. In every fourth day care centre there is more than one preschool teacher per unit. In 16 percent of the day care centres there are at least one male pre-school teacher, and 34 percent of the day care centres had at least one male assistant. The number of day care centres with at least one male employee has increased from 33 percent in 2002 to 51 percent in 2008. The percentage of educated preschool teachers in day care centres varies a lot. In one in four day care centres 27 percent, or fewer, of the staff had preschool teacher education. In another fourth of the day care centres 43 percent, or more, were educated preschool teachers. Compared to 2004 there has not been any decrease in the proportion of preschool teachers. The proportion of preschool teachers has increased more in the private day care centres than in municipal day care centres. Nine out of ten day care centres have annual appraisal talks with their staff. Eight out of ten employ internal vocational training schemes for their staff, and more than half of the day care centres have a separate budget for such training. In this area there has been a small increase since the last evaluation in 2004. The size of the day care centre is the most decisive factor determining whether all three measures to improve the staff are set. Norwegian day care centres operate within the framework of a national curriculum (Rammeplanen). Since last survey in 2004 the number of subjects to be covered according to the national curriculum havebeen expanded from five to seven. In 2008 most day care centres emphasised the area "Communication, language and texts". Emphasis on this subject has increased steadily since 2002. Similar to what has been reported in earlier periods there was least interest for the area "Ethics, religion and philosophy". In 2008 fewer day care centres work with all areas compared to 2004, but we observed a tendency that bigger private day care centres work with more areas. The vast majority of day care centres have established formal routines for informing parents and new employees. This applies above all to what we define as «start-up information». Since 2004 the day care centres have increased their formal routines for writing down information to and from care givers. At least eight out of ten day care centres have routine parent-staff conversations, parent-staff meetings and liaison committee meetings twice a year. More day care centres employ user surveys, but not as frequent as in 2004. The existence of formal information routines depends heavily on a day care centre's size, bigger centres have more formal routines. Children's well-being and development are commonly evaluated in a traditional manner, i.e. by observation, followed by educational documentation. About half of the day care centres make little or no use of methods such as systematic conversations or interviews with children. There is however a small increase in the use of child interviews. The number of day care centres where children participate in assessment work has increased since 2002, in 2008 59 percent of the day care centres involved children in the assessment work. Children are also being drawn more and more into the process of planning the day care centre's activities, and children are now participating more than their parents in such planning. Even though participation has increased considerably there are still a high number of day care centres where there is little or no child or parental participation. The general opinion among managers is that the physical environment such as buildings and outdoor areas are satisfactory and suitably adapted for all the children in the day care centre. In 2002 every third day care centre achieved top score on this measure. In 2008 half of the day care centres did the same. This is especially true for the biggest and newest day care centres. In half of the day care centres the owners have made plans for training or post-qualifying education facilities for their staff, and two out of three are already providing such training. Municipal day care centres are still ahead of their private counterparts both in terms of planning and providing training and post-qualifying education facilities for their staff. As regards the extent of contact and collaboration between the individual day care centre and the municipality in its role as local day care centre authority, no positive change can be seen from 2002 to 2008. The contact between them is slightly lower than in earlier surveys, and we find this problematic as contact is decisive for the municipal authority in order to have control. Our survey for 2008 revealed that the municipal authority have more intensive contact with municipal day care centres than with private day care centres, which makes us question their equal treatment. Compared to 2004 there are slightly more managers who report that bullying never occurs in their day care centre in 2008. Still the majority of day care centre managers report instances of bullying during last year, but at the same time they state that this happens only very rarely. The most common method to reduce bullying is the programme entitled «You and I and the two of us», which is used by half of the day care centres. The program that has increased most since 2004 is «Step by step», this program is now used in one third of theday care centres. The measures and routines for preparing the transition between day care centres and schools have been considerably improved since last survey. Such preparations for five-year olds are now established in almost every day care centre. However, it is problematic that more measures are in place in municipal day care centres than in private day care centres. It is most common to organize day care centres in units. 80 percent of the day care centres are organised in this way, while 13 percent are not divided into units. It is most common to have units divided by age. 60 percent of the day care centres have established formal routines for assessing all the children's language development, while a third has no regular routine for doing this. Those without formal routines report they assess only children who appear to have special needs in this area. 56 percent of the day care centres have at least one child with reduced functional ability. Almost all of these get additional support in order to employ extra staff. 87 percent have established formal contact with other municipal authorities to be able to give the child maximum support. As in the two earlier surveys the day care centre managers are generally satisfied with their framework conditions. We could also find that private day care managers are more satisfied with the conditions in which they operate than the managers of municipal day care centres. Most managers state that the localities are suitable for the children and for the purpose to which they are used. This opinion is especially strong among managers of new day care centres, for big day care centres, and is even more common in private than in municipal day care centres. A joint comparison of 30 different quality indicators in 2004 and 2008 indicate that day care centres in 2008 on average get a higher score than in 2004. ; Denne rapporten er en oppfølging av to tidligere NOVA-rapporter om kvalitetssatsingen i barnehagene i årene 2001-2003. Siden den gang har arbeidet med økt kvalitet måttet skje parallelt med et stadig større fokus på full dekning og lavere barnehagepriser. Sammenlignet med år 2003 har antallet barn i barnehagene økt med 60 000 nye barn, de fleste under tre år. Hovedmålet med rapporten har vært å finne svar på hvordan denne økningen har påvirket kvaliteten sammenlignet med tidligere år. Rapporten fokuserer på barnehagenes oppfølging av rammeplanen, rutiner og arbeidsmåter, fysisk miljø, samarbeid med eier og lokal myndighet, mobbing, overgang til skole, organisering, språkstimulering og støtte til barn med ekstra behov. Undersøkelsen, som bygger på et spørreskjema til styrerne i barnehagene, viser at den sterke veksten i barnehagesektoren har funnet sted uten at det har gått på bekostning av barnehagenes kvalitet.

The purpose of this project is to create new knowledge on how cooperating public service providers implement their rights and duties regarding confidentiality and disclosure. Agencies include the health and welfare services, the police, correctional services, the Child Welfare Services, kindergartens and schools. We have examined whether the practices comply with the rules and regulations, as the authorities have interpreted them in guidelines and informational publications and identified the causes of noncompliance. The main research questions have been: - To what extent do the informants have knowledge of confidentiality and disclosure obligations? - To what extent have guidelines and informational publications contributed to an awareness of the rules? - To what extent is the duty of confidentiality an obstacle for cooperation? - What other potential obstacles to cooperation exist? - If cooperation with other agencies is limited, what are the causes? - Are participants aware of the legal exceptions in exercising the duty of confidentiality? - To which extent do participants obtain consent from involved parties? What challenges in obtaining consent arise in cases involving children and parents? - To what extent is anonymisation used to facilitate collaboration, in which ways and how does it work? - How well known are The Child Welfare Service's and Social Welfare's duties to inform, and to what extent is it fulfilled? - To what extent does the Child Welfare Service comply with its duty to give feedback? Design /methodological approach We conducted a literature review, to determine what evidence exists in this field. An analysis of documents was done to study the legal aspects, and specify the normative framework for assessing practice. Four municipalities and a borough of Oslo were selected for this study. Semi structured interviews and a structured survey were carried out with employees in the following sectors: primary health services, somatic and psychiatric specialist health services, public administration, the Child Welfare Services, kindergartens, schools, The Educational and Psychological Counselling Service, the police, correctional services, and the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service. Three principle findings The rules regarding the duty of confidentiality are generally perceived to be valuable and necessary. All our participants had knowledge of the confidentiality obligation and its implications. Furthermore all participants were aware of the consent and anonymisation exceptions. Therefore these means are used extensively as grounds to share sensitive information. A key response from practitioners in the field is that they do not perceive the rules regarding the duty of confidentiality to be obstacles to cooperation. On the contrary, the informants state that the existing rules, especially the exception rule, are sufficient to communicate essential information between services and agencies. A new approach to cooperation and interaction has been a result of the increased focus on these issues in the latter years. The participants experience that clients or users of their services take part in a different way than before. They express that practice is changing, and that their work is now more client focused. Nonetheless, the participants report that not all necessary information is exchanged, and they want better collaboration between agencies. It remains unclear whether the regulations themselves or other factors determine if information actually gets shared. This is as much a matter of trust between agencies, personal relationships and experiences with previous partners, as it is a lack of acknowledgement of, or capacity to, understand other agencies' informational needs. A second issue is that the participants rarely read laws, informational publications or guidelines, even if they are insecure about the current rules. The participants report that that they barely know the different guidelines, that they aren't available at their place of work, or that they are available, but still don't read them. The different services and agencies vary with regard to training on the duty of confidentiality and cooperation, and which aspects they focus on. There is consistency between the manager's knowledge of and preoccupation with the regulations, and each employee's confidence in their knowledge of the regulations. The third major finding is that the rules about exceptions are not well-known. Some of the participants are aware of the exceptions in the laws governing their field of work, but the vast majority have never read the relevant sections of the law. The participants' knowledge of The Health Personnel Act section 23 no. 4 is especially inadequate. The Public Administration Act section 13b no. 5 and no. 6. are also not well-known to the informants, but they have somewhat better knowledge of the limitations to the duty of confidentiality in the special legislation. The duty to disclose information to the Child Welfare Service is well-known amongst the participants. A large majority state that this duty is fulfilled according to the intentions of the law. The duty to disclose information to other agencies, like the police or welfare services, is less familiar. The Child Welfare Services duty to give feedback to someone who makes a report is well-known by most informants. Although, dissatisfaction is expressed over the lack of feedback from the Child Welfare Service when one self has sent a concern to them. The need for additional knowledge in this field. This project has generated new knowledge in a field where little evidence exists. Our findings have contributed to advancing our understanding of the normative framework experienced impacts actual knowledge, and practice. The field of health and welfare research is dominated by relatively specialized research. There are few cross disciplinary projects involving practitioners and academics. There are many students and employees in these fields of study, and a vast and complicated set of laws and regulations. Many of the students, practically all, are trained in one of the fields that are represented in our study. Many of those practice only one profession. The research is similarly limited to one field. In our opinion the challenges ahead, in the area of health and welfare, are between the various professions, laws and their guidelines. The users of public services need additional evidence across fields and that practitioners can manage both practice and a wider scope of legal understanding. There have been few extensive research programs that have included interdisciplinary and interagency research. One example is a program The Research Council of Norway had for a national action plan on mental health from 2001–2009. Our research project may be seen as a follow up of this research, but with a more limited framework. We do not have knowledge of other studies that have included as many laws and professional fields in the same study. The July 22. 2011 tragedy, has shown the need to improve communication, and practice across services and agencies. While revisions of laws are possible and better coordination of laws, regulations and guidelines continue, we look forward to participating in new inter- and multi disciplinary research projects. ; Formålet med dette prosjektet har vært å framskaffe mer kunnskap om praktiseringen av taushetsplikten, opplysningsretten og opplysningsplikten mellom samarbeidende tjenester/etater, blant andre helse- og omsorgstjenestene, politiet, kriminalomsorgen, barnevernet, barnehage og skole. Prosjektet har gjennom litteraturstudier, dokumentanalyse, intervjuer og en spørreskjemaundersøkelse generert ny og viktig tverrfaglig kunnskap på et felt med lite forskning fra før.