A social pedagogical model for counselling immigrant students in non-formal adult education

This article describes a research and development project that aimed to create a social pedagogical model for counselling immigrant students. The setting for the project was the field of non-formal adult education, more precisely Finland’s folk high schools and study centres. The starting point for the project was a concern for being able to support a meaningful integration of the immigrant students in the non-formal adult education institutions. These institutions see integration not only as a process of finding a place to study or work; they aim at supporting the immigrants’ meaningful participation and sense of belonging of in Finnish society. A collaborative development process was started, facilitated by a researcher from the University of Eastern Finland. People from about 20 organisations committed themselves to the process, where the values, aims and principles of counselling were reflected and best practices and methods shared mutually between the participants. Methodologically, the process followed the basic ideas of participatory action research. This article describes the development process and makes an overview of the social pedagogical model for counselling. The model includes general principles that guide the work with immigrants, a description of intercultural counselling as a long-term process and a collection of methods that follow the principles. At the end of the article the model is reflected upon from the point of view of Herman Nohl’s concept of pedagogical relationship.