Comprehensive support to the child with challenging behaviour in elementary school

This master thesis examines the case study of a child support intervention in a primary school. The child at the center of this case study was indentified by his teachers, parents, school workers and other students, as a child with a particularly challenging behaviour. The aformentioned subjects identified the child's behaviour as distracting and irritating in the school and home environment, and confirmed that his behaviour affects their relationship with the child. As the author of this paper, a social pedagogic worker, I participated in this study as part of the counselling service team. Throughout the study I was able to provide the extra professional support, individual learning assistance, I have worked together with the child's class teacher, in and outside the class, and collaborated with the child's mother. During this whole process I tried to involve the child, the class teacher, mother, and other professionals in the school in the case study as much as I could. The child support programme is based on the knowledge that the child's behaviour is strongly influenced by the context of his daily interactions. I identified these contextual characteristics and situations by conducting interviews with people involved in the process, by observing the everyday interactions, and by reading papers and documentation about this matter. This helped me identify the environmental factors, the child's needs, and the risks and protective factors in his environment. The whole study was based on the collaborative relations that occured during the process of support, that child was actively included. To conduct this research I used a qualitative research method – case study. The aim of this research was to identify and confirm the importance of interaction and collaboration between the people involved in the process, inside and outside the school environment. The results show that all the subjects involved in the study identify the child's ekternalizated behaviour as challenging and distracting. The subjects react to this behaviour by using a different form of support and intervention. However, most of these interventions are focused on education. The results showcased the importance of an extended continuum of assistance and the importance of team-work in the execution and evaluation of the individualized education programme. Furthermore, the study also confirms the importance of the professional reflection which can contribute to a better understanding of the integrated approach. Unfortunately this tends to be overlooked due to the systemically less team-oriented school politics