Normalizing and strengthening everyday life

We aim to strengthen the living environment of families by addressing three causes of an individual-focused approach and high youth care usage: resources for reinforcing ‘everyday life’ are less well known than the routes to individual treatment. This is partly maintained because parents, young people, and professionals often think about problems in psychological terms. This narrows their perspective, causing solutions within the family’s living environment to remain out of view.

• Tools to better identify and utilize opportunities in everyday life.

• Strategies for professionals to create more space for normalization within organizations.

• Strategies to formulate and use a more normalizing language during parenting and child development.

• Knowledge from the research is also disseminated to the field and embedded within the social, educational, and medical training programs of the involved knowledge institutions.

We strive for a society in which the combined strengths of young people, parents, family, friends, neighbours, childcare, schools and community organisations are fully utilised, enabling families to thrive in a strong ‘ordinary life’. Central to this is that solutions to challenges in growing up and parenting are sought as much as possible within ordinary life. Where this means professional support is not needed, it is not provided.

With the insights gained from the various subprojects, we are developing educational materials (such as knowledge clips, podcasts, fact sheets, and workshop formats) for current and future professionals. In this way, we aim to encourage professionals to reflect on their use of classifications and to provide them with practical tools for adopting a normalizing approach and using more pedagogically oriented language.

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities