Final report of the ONNI project published

The final report of the Success in school safety project (ONNI), which focused on researching and developing safety culture in comprehensive schools, is now publicly available online. The project, which started in 2022 and ended on March 31, 2024, aimed to support the development of schools’ safety culture and produce research-based knowledge on the state of school safety and its development during the intervention. A total of 20 schools from different parts of Finland participated in the project, with 15 serving as pilot schools for research and development work, and five acting as control schools.

The core of the project’s research was the study of schools’ independent preparedness, staff safety competence, and levels of proactive safety measures, as well as the development of evaluation criteria and methods for assessing safety culture. Through a comprehensive research approach examining the effects of the intervention, the project provided an up-to-date snapshot of safety culture in the participating schools. The results indicate that schools’ safety culture is largely reactive, with proactive safety efforts receiving less emphasis. However, the intervention successfully steered the development of safety culture in a more proactive direction within just one school year.

– We examined the level and changes in safety culture in schools through surveys, safety incident data collection, external evaluator observation reports, and focus group interviews. The results show that school staff consider their safety competence to be good, although an external review indicates that schools’ self-preparedness barely meets the legally required level, says the project leader, Professor Eila Lindfors.

The purpose of the final report is to share the research findings produced during the project, the development work carried out in the participating schools, as well as the operational models and tools created to support the development of school safety culture. The report compiles the key results of the multi-perspective research and development project and provides recommendations for the future development of school safety culture.

– The recommendations emphasize the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration, research-based development, and increasing participation. There are clear needs for development, but schools should not be left alone in the task of improving safety. Within schools, responsibility for safety lies not only with the principal but with everyone – including students, who can be encouraged to engage in safety efforts through age-appropriate tasks, exercises, observations, and demonstrations, Lindfors states.

More information:

Lindfors, E., Luukka, E., Kokki, J., & Kiviranta, L. (Eds.) (2024). ONNI on turvallinen koulu 2022–2024: Hankkeen loppuraportti [Success in school safety 2022–2024: Project report]. University of Turku. https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-9635-3