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.