Psykisk ohälsa i skolan - Ett kuratorsperspektiv

Mental illness in school – A counselors perspective - The purpose of the study is to examine school counselors work with students (13- 15 years of age) who are struggling with mental illness. Focus on mental illness is discussed in a school context. From the school counselors perspective questions like, what kind of working methods are they using and, how they collaborate are examined. The research design is based on a qualitative approach, with ten Semistructured interviews with ten different informants who work as a counsellor at 10 different schools around Skåne. The theories that highlights and are used for analyzing the empirical material are the ecological systems theory (also called development in context or human ecology theory), social facts theory, network theory and network and exchange theory. The theories overall highlights the importance of knowledge what causes the mental illness and the importance of collaboration between different authorities. Results in the study shows that, from the counselors experience, mental illness is increasing among younger students and is often related to stress caused by different factors within the school. The study show a pattern that the counselors work with the same type of counselling methods. Some of them also mentions new types of technique in their work with the children such as DISA and COOL kids. Another pattern is that the counselors highlights the importance of collaboration, both within school but also with other authorities. A pattern is also that the school counselors find that the collaboration is difficult and that other authorities do not always want to collaborate, authorities like the social services and the child psychiatry. This is a very serious problem knowing that the mental illness is increasing. Another pattern in the study is that the counselors point out that they need more time to support the students, and more understanding from politicians about their work of helping the student in the school