Marte meo and coordination meetings : MAC

In the early 1990s two sets of experiences coincided and eventually resulted

in the development of Marte Meo and Co-ordination Meetings

(MAC).

The first concerned my experience of inter-agency effectiveness in

Sweden. In my work as an external supervisor a [...]
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In the early 1990s two sets of experiences coincided and eventually resulted

in the development of Marte Meo and Co-ordination Meetings

(MAC).

The first concerned my experience of inter-agency effectiveness in

Sweden. In my work as an external supervisor and trainer in my hometown

I often came across the same children, but in different professional

contexts. They and their families had been referred to different agencies

and the reason for the referral was often a teacher who expressed

her concern about the childs development. The school often described

these children as having interaction and learning problems. It was also

common that the agencies to whom the children were referred the Social

Services, Child Guidance Clinics, agencies for children with special

needs etc. did not share the schools definition of the problem. This was

sometimes true even for the childs parents.

However, the general consensus from the professionals was that the

family should receive some form of help, and that this work would then

(hopefully) result in the child performing better in school. It could also

be that the different agencies disagreed in their evaluation of the seriousness

of the childs problem or whose responsibility it was to help.

More than once I witnessed schools and other agencies criticise each

other, each of them often questioning the way in which the other defined

and carried out their professional responsibilities.

This kind of experience strengthened the conviction that there must

surely be a fairly simple and practical way for the agencies created by

society in order to protect and ensure childrens safety and development

to co-operate more effectively, and use their resources and knowledge

in a more co-ordinated fashion.

Another clearly observed pattern was that when the parents of the

child did not share the professionals view of the childs need for support,

the resulting conflict often stopped the child from receiving any

kind of support.

A short history

0-titel-innehall-x.indd 7 2013-02-11 19.01

8 The second was coming into contact with and learning the videobased

model named Marte Meo. I helped introduce Marte Meo into

Sweden in the late eighties and although at that time nothing was

known (more than anecdotal evidence) regarding the effectiveness of

the model, it quickly became apparent that there was a great deal of

interest to implement it in different professional settings. A colleague

and friend Professor Kjell Hansson constantly reminded me about

the lack of evidence, and in particular what he said was my lack of responsibility

in introducing a model whose effectiveness was unknown.

His friendly pressure was very helpful, and the decision was made to

research the model and its effectiveness.

These two sets of experiences were the starting point of what later

became MAC. One of the core ideas that form the foundation of MAC

is that the child can be offered help in that context where her problem

is first observed and identified in this case, the school. In practice, this

means that when the school seeks contact with parents, it is to ask for

their consent so that the teacher can get extra help in the classroom to

better support their child. Succeeding experience has shown that few parent

turns down this offer.

In the early stages of planning a pilot-project it became apparent that

some kind of social construction a story or narrative that could be

accepted by all parts was needed to keep the system of school and

parents co-ordinated, and create a co-operative frame. Such a frame

would help elicit the parents blessing in the schools attempt to support

their children, and offer the school a rationale that would justify

the extra expenditure of time and energy in the classroom. The idea of

how this should happen in practice was initially rather foggy, and it

proved to be a stroke of luck to invite psychologist Ulf Axberg, Ph. D.

to help with the creation of this part of the project. He brought both

theoretical and practical clarity with him, and researched the work, and

eventually wrote his doctoral dissertation on the project.

Kjell Hansson has continued to offer his invaluable collaboration

during MACs development over time, as well as to the ongoing research

designed to determine its effectiveness. He has been a constant

discussion partner and has given constructive feedback throughout the

writing process.

Ingegerd Wirtberg