It’s been 30 years since I’ve had the opportunity to do international work as a part of my day job. My recent splurge on a trip to Iceland to present with colleagues at a conference on extended learning and youth development made me realize how important it is to look outside of our boundaries. Consider these words from the welcome blog from Kolbrún Pálsdóttir, Dean of the School of Education of the University of Iceland and the GELYDA conference host:
“In Iceland, we’ve long recognized that education is about more than just academic achievement. It’s about growing young people who are literate, creative, democratic, and grounded in human rights and equality. That’s why, over a decade ago, Iceland’s national curriculum embedded six core values into all levels of schooling. But while these values are clear on paper, our biggest challenge lies in bringing them to life — not just in classrooms, but in every space where young people learn and grow.
And that includes spaces many systems still overlook: our youth centers, afterschool programs and community hubs. These are not just “add-ons” to formal education. They are essential ecosystems for relationship building and identity development. Yet, too often, we fail to tap into their full potential or weave them meaningfully into the educational fabric.
…The diversity is inspiring, but the integration into policy and practice is still lagging. We need to take what we know about how learning happens — in social, connected and often informal ways — and use that knowledge to reshape our systems.”
Iceland has a strong tradition of publicly funded, community-based youth work, as I learned from an informative presentation by Oddný Sturludóttir, a doctoral student and adjunct lecturer at the university.
- Leisure time centers for 6- to 9-year-olds, rooted in the traditional Nordic child-centered approach, are situated in or near schools, operating in the out-of-school hours including summer and holidays. Legislation has been in place since 2016 to ensure that centers are affordable and inclusive. 95 percent of 6-year-olds are registered.
- Youth work professionals are available in schools or close to schools, providing a range of extended learning activities for 10- to 16-year-olds in or close to schools free of charge, as well as community-based clubs and outreach work for vulnerable youth. Youth work and centers for older youth are not evenly available across municipalities.
- In addition to the sports, arts, games and SEL activities managed by community-based organizations that are subsidized by municipalities, every family with school age children 6-18 directly receives 500 Euros annually. 80 percent of the vouchers are used.
Already ahead of the U.S. with their commitment to universal extended education, Iceland took another major step forward with the passing of the Wellbeing Act in 2021. The Act (also translated as the Prosperity Act) mandates that all professionals working with children and youth — whether teachers, social workers, or afterschool leaders — collaborate across sectors. This policy is now being implemented by municipalities throughout the country. Sturludóttir is managing a pilot study of three municipalities that had already begun collaborating at the systems level to understand what it takes to spark and sustain interprofessional collaboration.
[Related: Beyond the classroom: Reimagining school, family and community engagement for Black youth]
I’ve promised to interview Sturludóttir once she’s further along in the study. But I can’t resist offering a quick peek. She used Anne Edwards’ research on collaboration across practice boundaries to hypothesize three types of observable changes that can result from effective cross-practice collaboration:
- Relational expertise. The capacity to recognize and work with the experience of others.
- Relational agency. The capacity to work with others to interpret and respond to complex problems.
- Common knowledge. The shared understanding that is developed through collaboration and dialogue.
From where I sit, signs of steady growth in these indicators across the practice divides would constitute clear evidence that systems are providing practitioners with the time, trust, training and tools needed to optimize connections between people, places and possibilities. Sturludóttir highlights this quote from a leisure/youth worker pedagogue:
“People are suddenly starting to realise that there’s a whole world of professionals out there who are absolutely brilliant at working with children and youth … using approaches that are different from what they´re used to.“
Crafting policies that actually create “channels for structure and understanding” can facilitate shifts from scarcity to abundance mindsets, perhaps even in the face of objective reductions in resources, as expressed by members of an inter-professional team working closely with youth centers reaching vulnerable youth:
“…we see very clearly that the youth workers are observing entirely different things than the school perhaps sees [about] certain individuals. So, there’s now a clear pathway for the youth center to enter a solution team meeting and bring the case forward. And then there’s already a proposed approach, a direction.”
But as noted in earlier columns, the structured challenges can only be effective if they leave ample space and time for relationship building. Change only happens at the speed of trust:
“…with this project, you’re in frequent communication with welfare services, which includes child protection, special educators, and all that. It really increases access, for me as a professional, you know? You’re in contact with these people … attending meetings with them, and as a result, you get to know them. …These personal connections really matter. It’s much harder to call someone when you don’t even know what they look like — and who knows nothing about our work.” [A youth worker leader in a youth center]
“To reach out to vulnerable kids and teenagers? I am seeing those kids, and I´m pretty good at evaluating their needs. But when it comes to engaging with them on a peer level, make the necessary connection, no one has the same skill set as the youth center staff!” [A social worker, working for an integrated service unit (education, welfare, and youth work)]
Sturludóttir had a small caution of a cause for concern — in small print on the last slide of her presentation — that is worth bolding as we bring these ideas into the U.S. context. She acknowledges the possibility that municipalities might interpret the law in a way that equates collaboration with consolidation under one institution, “thereby flattening the uniqueness and strengths of leisure practice and youth work, instead of enhancing them.”
[Related: In Dallas, a Big Thought is brewing about how cities can help their children grow]
We are in danger of doing this every time we tether the future of the education of our youth — our public mandate to build an educated, civically engaged, morally responsible populace — to the future of the public school system, which needed major overhauling even before the COVID-19 pandemic and the age of AI. We can learn much from other countries on the ways they draw the lines between traditional schooling and community-based enrichment and supports. Where the lines fall and how much they are intentionally blurred or bridged can be key to development of dynamic equitable ecosystems that build on the “uniqueness and strengths” of the institutions and professionals outside of formal schooling that are simply too important to ignore.
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In her columns, Karen Pittman is exploring the research behind the statement, “When Youth Thrive, We All Thrive.”
