Kokemuksia haastavista ja kuormittavista tilanteista varhaiskasvattajien työssä

Opinnäytetyön lisäosan tarkoituksena oli selvittää, millaisia haastavia ja kuormittavia tilanteita varhaiskasvattajat voivat kohdata työssään lasten, huoltajien, työyhteisön ja muiden tilanteiden parissa. Tutkimustehtävä keskittyi erityisesti siihen, millä tavalla haasteisiin voidaan vaikuttaa ja millaisiin tilanteisiin varhaiskasvattajat kokevat itse pystyvänsä vaikuttamaan ja millaisiin eivät. Tutkielmassa käsiteltiin myös varhaiskasvattajien kokemia työn voimavaroja, jotka osaltaan tukevat varhaiskasvattajien työssä jaksamista. Tutkielmassa vertailtiin varhaiskasvattajien ja muskariopettajien kokemuksien samankaltaisuuksia, koska tämä tutkielma täydensi aikaisempaa musiikkipedagogin (AMK) opinnäytetyötäni (Mäkipelto 2014). Teoreettinen viitekehys muodostui tässä tutkielmassa työhyvinvointiin liittyvästä kirjallisuudesta ja aikaisemmasta tutkimuksesta, joissa tarkasteltiin työkäytäntöjen ja työn voimavara- ja kuormitustekijöiden vaikutuksia työhyvinvointiin. Tutkielma toteutettiin kvalitatiivisena eli laadullisena tutkimuksena ja tutkimusmenetelmänä käytettiin puolistrukturoitua teemahaastattelua. Teemahaastattelu analysoitiin teemoittelun ja aineistolähtöisen sisällönanalyysin avulla. Yhteistyökumppanina oli Norlandia päiväkodit. Haastatteluun osallistui neljä varhaiskasvattajaa, joiden kokemukset eivät liittyneet ainoastaan nykyiseen työpaikkaan Norlandian päiväkodissa, vaan ne koskivat myös aikaisempaa työhistoriaa. Tutkimustulokset osoittivat, että haastavat ja kuormittavat kokemukset liittyivät erityisesti lapsiryhmän hallintaan, huoltajien kohtaamiseen, työyhteisön ristiriitoihin, työn ulkopuoliseen elämään ja työnkuvaan liittymättömiin tilanteisiin kuten siivoamiseen. Ongelmanratkaisukeinoiksi nimettiin lasten parissa tunteiden käsittely ja rauhallinen vuorovaikutus. Varhaiskasvattajat kokivat, että huoltajien parissa auttoi kunnioittava suhtautuminen ja säännöllinen tiedottaminen. Työyhteisössä korostui yhteisten sääntöjen, kommunikoinnin ja toimivan johtajuuden merkitys. Muissa tilanteissa painotettiin työn ulkopuolisesta elämästä huolehtimista. Varhaiskasvattajat kokivat, että lasten perheoloihin ja resurssien puutteeseen he eivät pystyneet vaikuttamaan. Työn voimavaroina painottui lasten riemu ja kehitys, toimiva yhteistyö huoltajien ja työyhteisön parissa sekä oman työn kehittäminen, arvostaminen ja rajaaminen. Edeltävissä tuloksissa oli paljon yhteneväisyyksiä aikaisempien tutkimustulosten kanssa. Varhaiskasvattajat ja muskariopettajat olivat kokeneet yhtäläisiä haastavia tilanteita erityisesti lapsiryhmän hallintaan, huoltajien kohtaamiseen ja työyhteisössä heikkoon perehdytykseen ja sääntöjen epäselvyyteen liittyvissä tilanteissa. Ongelmanratkaisukeinoina korostui molemmissa ammattiryhmissä lasten parissa keskusteleminen, yhteisten sääntöjen, periaatteiden ja toimintatapojen vahvistaminen. Varhaiskasvattajat ja muskariopettajat kokivat lasten riemun ja työkavereiden tuen voimavaraksi. Johtopäätöksistä ilmeni, että varhaiskasvattajien ja muskariopettajien työssä korostui vuorovaikutuksen merkitys. Mikäli vuorovaikutus oli heikkoa, se aiheutti enemmän kuormitusta. Jos vuorovaikutus toimi, yhteisöllisyys lisääntyi ja toimi voimavarana. Jatkossa voitaisiin tutkia enemmän erityisesti työn ulkopuolisen elämän yhteyttä varhaiskasvattajien hyvinvointiin ja moniammatillisten varhaiskasvattajien erilaisia kokemuksia. Niiden merkitys korostui tässä tutkielmassa ja aikaisemmissa tutkimuksissa.The purpose of the supplementary thesis was to find out what kind of challenging and stressful situations early childhood educators may face in their work with children, guardians, the work community and other situations. The aim was to find ways to influence the challenges and find out which situations early childhood educators feel themselves capable of influencing and which not. The thesis focused also on the strengthening factors experienced by early childhood educators, which contribute to the well-being of early childhood educators. Moreover, the thesis compares similarities between the experiences of early childhood educators and music playschool teachers as this thesis complements my earlier bachelor’s thesis in early childhood music education (Mäkipelto 2014). The theoretical framework of this thesis consists of occupational well-being literature and earlier studies, which examined the effects of work practices and work strength and stress factors on occupational well-being. The thesis was carried out as qualitative research and a semi-structured thematic interview was used as the research method. The thematic interview was analyzed with theme and content analysis. The cooperation partner was Norlandia Päiväkodit. Four early childhood educators participated in the interview. Their experiences were not only related to the current job at the Norlandia kindergarten, but also on past work history. The results demonstrated that challenging and stressful experiences were especially related to group management with children, the interaction with guardians, conflicts in the work community, life outside the workplace, and work assignment issues not included in the job description such as cleaning. Problem solving included emotional management and peaceful interaction with children. Early childhood educators felt that respect and regular information helped with guardians. In the work community the importance of common rules, communication and effective leadership were emphasized. The life outside of work was emphasized in other situations. Early childhood educators felt that they were unable to influence children's family conditions and lack of resources. The work strength-factors consisted of the joy and development of children, effective cooperation with guardians and the work community, as well as the development, appreciation and delimitation of their own work. These results had several similarities with previous research results. Early childhood educators and music playschool teachers had experienced similar challenging situations, especially in the group management with children, the interactions with guardians, and in the work community in situations involving weak orientation and unclear rules. Both professional groups solved problems by discussing with children and enforcing common rules and principles. Both professional groups felt that the joy of children and support from colleagues strengthened their work resources. The study concluded that interaction is important for both early childhood educators and music playschool teachers. If interaction was weak, it caused more stress. If it worked, communality increased and it served as a strength factor. The occupational wellbeing of early childhood educators could be studied further by focusing on life-factors outside work and a multi-professional perspective. The importance of these perspectives was emphasized in this thesis and former studies

Systematic Reviews of Animal Experiments Demonstrate Poor Human Clinical and Toxicological Utility

The assumption that animal models are reasonably predictive of human outcomes provides the basis for their widespread use in toxicity testing and in biomedical research aimed at developing cures for human diseases. To investigate the validity of this assumption, the comprehensive Scopus biomedical bibliographic databases were searched for published systematic reviews of the human clinical or toxicological utility of animal experiments. In 20 reviews in which clinical utility was examined, the authors concluded that animal models were either significantly useful in contributing to the development of clinical interventions, or were substantially consistent with clinical outcomes, in only two cases, one of which was contentious. These included reviews of the clinical utility of experiments expected by ethics committees to lead to medical advances, of highly-cited experiments published in major journals, and of chimpanzee experiments — those involving the species considered most likely to be predictive of human outcomes. Seven additional reviews failed to clearly demonstrate utility in predicting human toxicological outcomes, such as carcinogenicity and teratogenicity. Consequently, animal data may not generally be assumed to be substantially useful for these purposes. Possible causes include interspecies differences, the distortion of outcomes arising from experimental environments and protocols, and the poor methodological quality of many animal experiments, which was evident in at least 11 reviews. No reviews existed in which the majority of animal experiments were of good methodological quality. Whilst the effects of some of these problems might be minimised with concerted effort (given their widespread prevalence), the limitations resulting from interspecies differences are likely to be technically and theoretically impossible to overcome. Non-animal models are generally required to pass formal scientific validation prior to their regulatory acceptance. In contrast, animal models are simply assumed to be predictive of human outcomes. These results demonstrate the invalidity of such assumptions. The consistent application of formal validation studies to all test models is clearly warranted, regardless of their animal, non-animal, historical, contemporary or possible future status. Likely benefits would include, the greater selection of models truly predictive of human outcomes, increased safety of people exposed to chemicals that have passed toxicity tests, increased efficiency during the development of human pharmaceuticals and other therapeutic interventions, and decreased wastage of animal, personnel and financial resources. The poor human clinical and toxicological utility of most animal models for which data exists, in conjunction with their generally substantial animal welfare and economic costs, justify a ban on animal models lacking scientific data clearly establishing their human predictivity or utility

Näkymätönt Porrii. Porin veden historia

Peer reviewe

Workshop on acceleration of the validation and regulatory acceptance of alternative methods and implementation of testing strategies

This report describes the proceedings of the BfR-RIVM workshop on validation of alternative methods which was held 23 and 24 March 2017 in Berlin, Germany. Stakeholders from governmental agencies, regulatory authorities, universities, industry and the OECD were invited to discuss current problems concerning the regulatory acceptance and implementation of alternative test methods and testing strategies, with the aim to develop feasible solutions. Classical validation of alternative methods usually involves one to one comparison with the gold standard animal study. This approach suffers from the reductionist nature of an alternative test as compared to the animal study as well as from the animal study being considered as the gold standard. Modern approaches combine individual alternatives into testing strategies, for which integrated and defined approaches are emerging at OECD. Furthermore, progress in mechanistic toxicology, e.g. through the adverse outcome pathway approach, and in computational systems toxicology allows integration of alternative test battery results into toxicity predictions that are more fine-tuned to the human situation. The road towards transition to a mechanistically-based human-focused hazard and risk assessment of chemicals requires an open mind towards stepping away from the animal study as the gold standard and defining human biologically based regulatory requirements for human hazard and risk assessment

Workshop on acceleration of the validation and regulatory acceptance of alternative methods and implementation of testing strategies.

This report describes the proceedings of the BfR-RIVM workshop on validation of alternative methods which was held 23 and 24 March 2017 in Berlin, Germany. Stakeholders from governmental agencies, regulatory authorities, universities, industry and the OECD were invited to discuss current problems concerning the regulatory acceptance and implementation of alternative test methods and testing strategies, with the aim to develop feasible solutions. Classical validation of alternative methods usually involves one to one comparison with the gold standard animal study. This approach suffers from the reductionist nature of an alternative test as compared to the animal study as well as from the animal study being considered as the gold standard. Modern approaches combine individual alternatives into testing strategies, for which integrated and defined approaches are emerging at OECD. Furthermore, progress in mechanistic toxicology, e.g. through the adverse outcome pathway approach, and in computational systems toxicology allows integration of alternative test battery results into toxicity predictions that are more fine-tuned to the human situation. The road towards transition to a mechanistically-based human-focused hazard and risk assessment of chemicals requires an open mind towards stepping away from the animal study as the gold standard and defining human biologically based regulatory requirements for human hazard and risk assessment