,
,
,
EducationSchools, teachers, mentors, support professionals and other education professionals can collaborate with ASK-Solutions in different ways. This may involve a pupil or student who benefits from a different learning environment, enabling practical or project-based learning, sharing knowledge and experience, or contributing directly to public-benefit work and projects.
ASK-Solutions is not a replacement for school and does not provide a general education programme. The possibilities lie precisely in connecting with concrete work, a project or a subject that genuinely interests someone. This can sometimes create room for in-depth exploration, learning by doing and development that is more difficult to organise within a regular education programme.
Not every pupil or student thrives at every stage within the usual school environment. Sometimes a different context can be helpful for a while: one in which fewer things need to happen at the same time, someone can start at their own pace and there is less constant emphasis on tests, assignments or performance.
This may, for example, suit someone who has little confidence in their own abilities, has withdrawn considerably, finds social situations difficult, or learns and processes information differently from what is usually expected within an educational setting. A diagnosis is not the starting point. What matters more is what someone needs in order to rediscover interest, initiative and confidence.
Out-of-school support can then involve finding an activity or subject together that someone genuinely wants to engage with. The aim does not have to be to immediately catch up on an educational backlog. Sometimes becoming curious about something again, wanting to go somewhere and experiencing that you are capable of something can already be an important step.
A school has to provide a broad programme as part of its educational role, and a teacher has to divide their attention between different pupils, subjects and learning objectives. Within the work of ASK-Solutions, it can sometimes be possible to stay with one subject for much longer and explore it in considerably greater depth.
This can be particularly valuable for young people who are neurodivergent, can focus intensely on a particular subject, or only really become engaged when something captures their interest strongly enough. Instead of repeatedly interrupting that interest in order to move on to the next part of a programme, the interest itself can become an entry point for learning and development.
The subject might, for example, be programming, working with a Raspberry Pi, electronics, technology, digital systems or another technical or intellectual question. Subjects that are difficult to explore practically at home or at school can sometimes also be investigated where the necessary knowledge, resources, guidance and safe conditions are available. This may, for example, apply to certain experiments involving chemistry or the natural sciences.
The aim is not simply for someone to collect as many facts as possible about a single subject. The interest can instead be used to encourage someone to investigate, experiment, ask questions, solve problems and discover how they themselves learn most effectively.
A question or project of your own naturally reveals what you already know and what still needs to be discovered. This can help develop skills such as finding information, breaking down a problem, deciding on a next step, trying something out, investigating mistakes, asking for help and assessing whether a solution works.
When someone experiences that their own interests and knowledge are taken seriously, their view of what they are capable of can gradually change. This can be particularly important for young people whose experiences have mainly focused on what does not work or where they do not fit the expectations of their environment.
Social contact does not have to be organised as a separate exercise. Investigating something together, asking someone for help, explaining something or enthusiastically sharing a discovery can naturally create opportunities for contact and collaboration.
A young person who has explored a subject intensively may know more than a teacher or support professional about particular aspects of it. There is nothing unusual about this: a teacher needs to work broadly, while someone with a strong interest may have spent years gathering highly focused knowledge about a single subject.
Even so, asking for help can be difficult in such a situation. Asking a teacher a question may feel like having to admit that something is not working, while at the same time the young person may feel that they know more about other parts of the subject.
When someone with a similar interest joins in, the same question can take on a very different character. Two people can look together at a programming error, circuit, datasheet or technical problem without it being predetermined who is the person who knows and who is the person who has to learn.
Those roles can also change. One moment a volunteer, professional or other participant may know something the young person has not yet discovered; a little later, the young person may be the one who knows a particular detail and explains it to someone else. Asking for help and sharing knowledge then become part of a mutual exchange around a shared interest.
For someone who finds social contact difficult, development does not have to begin with an instruction to talk to more people. A shared activity can itself provide the reason for contact.
Someone may, for example, ask another person to take a look, explain why they think a solution does not work, hand over a component, search for information together or show someone what they have discovered. This naturally creates situations in which listening, explaining, asking questions, taking another person into account, disagreeing and working together have a practical purpose.
This can lower the social threshold. The conversation does not first have to be about the person themselves; there is something concrete between the people involved that they can both think about. From that shared interest, contact can then gradually become broader.
Sometimes the first step is not that someone needs to do more, but that there needs to be room to become interested in something again. A different environment can help someone temporarily step away from experiences in which learning has become mainly associated with pressure, assessment, failure or the feeling of continually falling short of expectations.
This does not mean that there is no structure or that there are no agreements. Going somewhere at an agreed time, starting on something that is genuinely interesting and returning later to continue with it can itself help rebuild routine and involvement.
Development does not have to be immediately visible in grades, productivity or completed assignments. Taking initiative again, asking a question independently, wanting to investigate something, daring to ask someone for help or proudly showing what you have made can at that point be just as meaningful.
Where possible, activities connect with work that genuinely exists within ASK-Solutions or one of its projects. A pupil or student does not then have to carry out an artificial exercise solely because a particular skill needs to be practised.
Someone may, for example, contribute to documentation, investigate a technical problem, programme, design or build something, help with preparation, research information or share their own knowledge with others. Which possibilities are appropriate depends on interests, experience, current capacity and the work that is actually available.
The fact that the work is real does not mean that work-related performance is expected. An activity can be meaningful without the amount of work produced becoming the measure of success. Learning and becoming active again can instead arise from discovering that someone's interest, presence and knowledge genuinely matter.
One of the projects in which practical learning and these forms of participation may be possible is the project The Owl’s Nest. The project is built around a shareable work model for practical work, learning, making, repairing and working together.
The work model can be implemented by different operators at different locations. Which activities, equipment, knowledge and opportunities for participation are available therefore depends on the concrete implementation by an operator at a particular location.
ASK-Solutions is itself one of those operators. Within concrete implementations by ASK-Solutions, there may for example be opportunities for technical and practical work, digital subjects, repair, design, knowledge sharing or participation in other activities. What is possible is coordinated with the relevant implementation and with what can responsibly be supported there.
The project website of The Owl’s Nest describes the work model and the different concrete possibilities in more detail.
View information for professionals on the project website of The Owl’s Nest
Practical learning does not have to take place through the project The Owl’s Nest. Other projects or organisation-wide work of ASK-Solutions may also connect with someone's interests or learning objectives.
Someone with a strong interest in software could, for example, contribute to or learn through a free-software project such as Nocterra. Bōzuki brings together subjects such as automotive technology, electronics, design, fabrication, documentation and media. Other work may involve research, websites, information, administration or preparing new projects.
The starting point is not that every young person should be placed into an existing project. We first look at the person, their interests and what they want or are able to develop, and then consider whether there is real work that fits.
When a pupil or student becomes involved through a school, teacher, mentor or other education professional, the different responsibilities remain clearly separated. ASK-Solutions does not automatically take over the educational responsibility of the school.
It can, however, be coordinated what someone is trying to rebuild or develop. This may, for example, involve attending somewhere regularly again, learning to plan, learning to ask for help, working more independently, social interaction, confidence in their own abilities or rediscovering an interest in learning.
ASK-Solutions can then explore which real activity, project context or form of practical support fits with that. During the collaboration, the parties involved can coordinate where necessary about how the participation is progressing and which practical adjustments may be useful.
Collaboration with education does not only have to arise when a pupil is struggling. Pupils and students can also take part in practical work, a project, an internship or a subject for which additional knowledge or facilities are available outside school as part of regular educational objectives.
The focus may be on technology, software, research, documentation, organisation, social issues or a combination of these. An assignment may originate from school, but it can also connect with existing project work in which something genuinely needs to be investigated, developed or documented.
Which form is suitable depends on the level of education, the objective, the support required and the work available at that time. Such collaboration is therefore coordinated in advance rather than offered as a single fixed education programme.
An education professional does not have to be involved only because a pupil or student is participating. Teachers, support professionals and other specialists can also contribute their own knowledge, experience and professional time to the public-benefit work of ASK-Solutions and its projects.
This may, for example, involve sharing knowledge as a guest teacher, helping think through a learning activity, making subject-specific expertise available, helping develop documentation or contributing to a project from their own professional experience.
A school or education organisation can also make materials, equipment, space, knowledge or financial support available where this helps make suitable public-benefit work or project development possible.
Sharing and promoting knowledge is itself one of the public-benefit objectives of ASK-Solutions. Collaboration within education therefore does not always have to arise around a single pupil, student or school assignment.
Education professionals can also exchange experiences and approaches with one another, investigate a question together or connect knowledge from different educational and practical environments. This may, for example, concern learning by doing, motivation, neurodiversity, practical technology, digital skills or ways in which young people can reconnect with learning.
ASK-Solutions does not have to be the educational subject-matter expert on every topic. Its contribution may instead lie in bringing together people and practical knowledge, providing room for exchange and helping record or further share useful knowledge.
Professionals can compare experiences from different schools, levels of education and support situations and explore which approaches do or do not work under different circumstances.
Education, technology, social development and other fields regularly overlap. Bringing together people from different backgrounds can help connect knowledge that might otherwise remain within separate disciplines.
Where appropriate, what emerges from collaboration can be developed into documentation, articles, explanations, examples or other forms that keep the knowledge available to others as well.
For some pupils or students, a practitioner, support professional or other care professional is also involved alongside school. In that situation, those roles remain distinct as well. An education professional remains responsible for their educational role, a practitioner for their own professional treatment or guidance, and ASK-Solutions for the work and activities in which someone participates.
Where necessary and appropriate, the parties involved can coordinate how participation fits with what someone can currently manage and is trying to rebuild or develop.
For collaboration in which treatment or professional care support plays an important role, we describe the possibilities in more detail on our care and treatment page.
Not every pupil, student or educational question calls for the same approach. We therefore first look at the person or educational objective, what interests them, what is already going well and where a different environment or way of learning may add something.
We can then consider which work or project fits, and which people, knowledge, resources and support are available. Where the project The Owl’s Nest is involved, the next step is to look at which operator implements the shareable work model and which concrete implementation may be suitable.
For knowledge sharing between professionals, an internship, a joint project or another form of organisation-wide collaboration, an individual pupil or a concrete implementation of The Owl’s Nest naturally does not have to be the starting point.
Would you like to discuss a pupil or student, an education project, knowledge sharing or another form of collaboration? Get in touch with us.
Learn more about the project The Owl’s Nest, the shareable work model and collaboration with operators that implement the model at different locations.
Where treatment or professional support is involved alongside education, further coordination between the different roles may be appropriate.
Explore the projects of ASK-Solutions and the different technical, digital, practical and social subjects within which learning and contributing can come together.
Copyright © 2026, ASK-Solutions
