Experiences of special need assistants and professionals working with them

In this master's thesis the profession of special need assistants is taken into consideration with a special focus on assistants’ work, challenges and obstacles they have to overcome as well as strategies to tackle such workload. The theoretical part of this thesis aims to present children with special needs along with a population that needs the assistance of professionals, description of inclusion, early examination and placement of children with special needs as one of the measures. The theoretical part is followed by a regulatory framework for the employment of such special needs assistants, a detailed description of their role, tasks, required skills and competence. Furthermore, cooperation with parents of children with special needs is presented together with the work of an expert group. Last but not least, attention is drawn towards higher levels of stress resulting from the psychological and work overload special needs assistants are experiencing on a daily basis. Towards the end of the theoretical part of the present thesis, strategies for stress reduction are presented, spotlighting the strategies emphasised by my interlocutors. Slovenian space lacks research, which would make an emphasis on special needs assistants point of view when evaluation of systemic arrangement of their profession is being conducted. With such evaluation, existing research mostly focuses on expert opinions or special use cases, which further led me towards qualitative research conducted partially through the lenses of special needs assistance. This research is largely presented in the empirical part of the thesis and consists of six special needs assistance, a headmasters assistant, and two headmasters themselves. Research conclusions point out the gaps and fallbacks of a current systemic framework for the employment of such assistants, which have to be addressed and eliminated in the future. The most problematic issue with such an employment process seems to be the desired level of education and disproportionate and unequal financing across departments. According to the research, special needs assistants are overall satisfied with their work, even though there is occasionally high work overload and even higher levels of stress due to the lack of proper professional education. The main differences between various assistants occur due to different levels of competence and self-reliability. Some of the most imminent changes in the field of special needs assistants are presented in the closing conclusion of the empirical part of this thesis