Berättelser om skolans arbete med barn i missbruksmiljöer. En kvalitativ studie.

The purpose of this study was to analyze narratives of school counselors and nurses’ on how they identify children who live in abusive environments and the actions they have taken. We used a qualitative method and the study consisted of eight semistructed interviews with four school counselors and four school nurses. We have analyzed our material using Goffmans theory about the theater metaphor and Michael Lipskys street-level bureaucracy. The following questions guided our study: how do the professionals describe their work with children who are in abusive environments, how do the professionals describe the prevention work and how do the professionals describe the actions taken by them when they have identified children in abusive environments. The main finding of this study was that all of the informants found it difficult to identify these children and decide whether or not abuse goes on in the family. The majority of the informants highlight the fact that there are an unrecorded number of students who live in those environments, but few discuss how they can identify the children better. Reports from school counselors and nurses reveal that they would like to be around the children more than they currently do, so that they may identify those children better. All of the informants described the importance of prevention work in school, but that the resources and time are limited