This master’s thesis aims to research the role social workers play in school counseling services. The theoretical part focuses on the role and basic tasks of school counseling services, thus describing basic principles of counseling service crucial for their work and three types of activities performed by social services. I further identify counseling services’ basic fields of work incorporated into Programming guidelines for counseling services. I demonstrate the importance of cooperation among social counseling services and other actors: pupils, parents, teachers, school administration, and external institutions. In the last part of the theoretical introduction, I concentrate on the input of social work in counseling services. I define a working relationship and different parts of the notion and present the importance of the individual working project of help. I lay out the role of social work with a family in school counseling services and introduce the area of social exclusion and poverty. Further, I point out the importance of the child’s voice and describe the role social work play in an emergency situation. Finally, I outline important competencies gained by students of social work during the time of their studies. The thesis is based on qualitative research in which 8 social workers, currently employed by counseling services, have participated. I base answers on posed research questions on partially structuralized open type of an interview. It can be derived from the research results that the most important concept social workers use. It is a working relationship within which the importance of the cooperation arrangement, the instrumental definition of the problem, the co-creation of solutions, and strength perspective are discussed most commonly. Furthermore, the role of a social worker as a respectful and responsible ally and user as an expert from experiences are also discussed extensively. I group the above competencies in five groups. Among communication competences, collected listening and summarizing or understanding test predominate. The successful implementation of work in school counseling services requires personal competences and skills, among them the joy of working with children, innovation and patience, organization competences and skills, for which planning, leadership, and mentorship are of utmost importance, professional competences and skills, among them identification and understanding of distress, comprehensive perspective on the problem and ethics and professionalism, and social (i.e. interpersonal) competences and skills, among which there are teamwork, cooperation, and empathy. Those who participated in the research identify work with vulnerable groups and working relationship as strong areas of social work. On the other hand, they recognize a lack of educational knowledge and knowledge for working with kids with specific learning disabilities and special need as weak areas. They identify the following main advantages of social work: a comprehensive approach, professional knowledge and working relationship. In general, they cooperate well with other profiles working in school counseling service whereas they identify the exchange of opinions, information, and experiences as the main factors contributing to excellent cooperation. During the pandemic, they have an important and active role in counseling services. They actively work with parents, teachers, pupils, and external institutions. They identify working with pupils and parents, working in the time of the coronavirus, and working with those directly connected to counseling services as challenging areas. In the future, challenges posed by the virtual world, an increase in mental disorders of children, as well as an increase in behavior and emotional difficulties will impact working with pupils. Challenges are and will also be connected to diversity of children and ensuring equal opportunities. Moreover, a strict distinction between educational work in school and parenting needs to be made. Challenges due to coronavirus outbreak are related especially to solving pandemic-specific situations and their consequences. Finally, challenges directly related to counseling services are their norms which have not been changed, regardless of the increased needs of children.
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