Enhanced Effort Aimed at Children in Care

Research has long shown that children in care fall behind at school. Their academic output is lower, and they experience social behavioural problems. Furthermore, they change school more often and are more liable than other children to face periods during which they are not receiving any teaching at all. One of the consequences of this is a lower grade point average at the Leaving Examination of the Folkeskole (the primary and lower secondary school).

This report evaluates the “Styrket Indsats” (“Enhanced Effort”) project, launched at 14 residential institutions in the period 2015-2017. The purpose of the “Styrket Indsats” project is to improve children’s well-being and learning potential in primary and lower secondary school. The project is based on the Positive Deviance approach, which focuses on success stories and on how organisations can learn from these. The core of the project is to examine and identify hidden solutions: When is a strategy successful, and what makes it successful?

VIVE’s evaluation of the project was based on continuous surveys among staff, and youths over the age of 13. Furthermore, initial and final focus group interviews were conducted with management and staff, and youths were interviewed individually.
The evaluation suggests that, so far, the project has made a positive difference for many of the children and youths at the institutions. A larger percentage of them are now happy at school, and it seems that their well-being has improved. Moreover, absenteeism due to sickness and authorised absence from school have declined. However, since the project has only been running for a few years and only at a few institutions, the empirical basis of the evaluation is relatively small.