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Author ORCID Identifier

Styliani Farmaki

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3186-3920

Konstantinos Kaplanis

https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1592-3426

Agapi Kandylaki

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2186-3617

Keywords

School Social Work, Participatory Action Research (PAR), Arts-based Systemic Intervention, Roma Student, Educational Inclusion, COVID-19

Abstract

This article presents an arts-based systemic school social work intervention that contributed to the educational inclusion of a primary school Roma student who exhibited unstable school attendance and was excluded from tele-education during COVID-19. The intervention was part of a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project conducted by the researcher (first author) in collaboration with 13 School Social Workers (SSWs) from Greece and Cyprus. After performing an original video-song entitled “We’ve not forgotten you”, the SSWs used it as a tool in arts-based, tailor-made interventions with socially isolated and marginalized students and members of their systems (parents, classmates, teachers) to help enhance their educational inclusion. One of these interventions is presented here. It was initiated by the SSW (second author) during quarantine and evolved within the school after its reopening, utilizing collective story-writing, theatre “from within the school community”, songwriting, drawing, and craft making. The intervention contributed to the target student’s empowerment, equal participation in peer and class groups, regular school attendance and sense of belonging, along with improving his family’s relationship with other student families and the school. It also promoted interdisciplinary and inter-school collaboration and fostered a climate of inclusion and resilience in the school community during the pandemic, opening up prospects for ongoing change towards inclusion in the future.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Author Biography

Styliani Farmaki is a PhD candidate at the Department of Social Work, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. She holds an MA in Social Work in Education, MSc in Educational Administration, BSc in Social Work, and BSc in Music Science and Art (“Monody” specialization). She is also a qualified systemic therapist, with experience as a school social worker and music teacher.

Konstantinos Kaplanis is a School Social Worker with a specialization in Counseling and Guidance. He holds an MA in Social Work in Education, MEd in Special Education, and BSc in Social Work.

Agapi Kandylaki is a Professor of Social Work and Multiculturalism at the Department of Social Work, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece, and the Head of the Joint (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Democritus University of Thrace, and University of Crete) Master Course in “Counselling”.

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