The source of a child's emotional distress and suffering at school can be poor peer relationships, peer violence and humiliation, poor relationships with the teachers, inability to meet school requirements, failure, despair and also exclusion. The exclusion of children from the class community is the main topic that I researched in my master's thesis. The main purpose of my work was to examine what is the role of counseling service in primary school for
preventing social exclusion among children. I was looking for answers in three main aspects: which preventive activities are carried out by social workers in primary school in class for pupils to strenghten the class community; how does the whole school as a community react on
social exclusion in class; and how is understanding of distress caused by social exclusion recognized by social workers and how do they respond on it. My research, for which I choose to collect data from partially structured interviews, is qualitative. I have interviewed six social
workers employed in primary schools in Slovenia. Through research I found that social workers conduct a variety of social games, prevention workshops and conversations to strengthen the class community. Social games and workshops have proven to be the most effective preventive forms of activities to avert exclusion of an individual from the class community. To reintegrate excluded peer into the class, social workers carry out intervention activities where they conduct interviews, thematic classes on the topic of acceptance, and workshops with the aim of learning
social skills. The school community immediately reacts and acts on the phenomenon of a child's exclusion from the class community. Social workers usually noticed the rejection of a peer when they are often isolated from the rest of the class. Unaccepted children may show desire to participate in a certain group longing to overcome their own non-acceptance, and the class must also accept that child among themselves. Through research I also found that conversation is the best method of help carried out by social workers, and the welfare service relations was presented as a great advantage that social workers have over other counselors on the school counseling team. I suggest more counselors be recruited in primary schools and that at least one social worker in the counseling service team be employed in each primary school. I also suggest carrying out even more preventive activities as well as repeated and periodic workshops on how involving everyone in the class community positively effects the class dynamics.
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