A European Social Fund project (2019-2021) brought dialogue into Finnish basic education, working with professionals supporting students with special needs. Finland's 2006 curriculum and 2010 law changes integrated special-needs pupils into mainstream classrooms, requiring new collaboration between teachers, welfare services, and family counselling. The project, coordinated by Tampere University, created "spaces for dialogue" across five schools in one municipality; mostly virtual due to COVID. Participants experienced these spaces as opportunities to get to know each other, reflect on relevant themes, learn from each other, and develop new practices. The local education department head's feedback: "Genuine dialogue has permeated the whole development project... The project has increased the appreciation and coping skills of children and young people, and strengthened positive pedagogy and inclusion." Tikkamäki reflects that facilitating dialogue requires "authenticity, vulnerability, incompleteness, and learning together." Writing the paper helped crystallise learnings; presenting to a multicultural audience revealed cultural assumptions about school systems that differ between countries.