KEMI TORNIO UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES

Key words: immigrant parents, children, mental health, promotion, school, cooperation This thesis deals with the immigrant parents ’ role in mental health promotion of their primary school children. It is a part of KOPSY project which focuses on the mental health promotion of primary school children. The main aim of this study is to get acquainted with the concept of immigrant parents towards mental health and the ways parent bridge between two unfamiliar cultures and cooperate with school for children’s optimum mental health. This thesis mainly deals with three questions: What do parents mean by mental health? What have parents been doing to promote the mental health of their children? How do parents cooperate with school to promote the mental health status of their children? My thesis is based on qualitative research method and ethnographic approach. Two immigrant parents were selected for interview through convenience sampling. Data collection was done by theme interview technique and the collected data was analyzed by content analysis method. Immigrant parents mean that being physically good, state of mind being good and moving according to the pace of time to be happy and satisfied is mental health. Parents mentione