School's counselling service does various jobs and offers support to pupils, teachers, and parents. The master’s thesis presents the role of the school’s counselling service in performing preventive activities and offering help to pupils and students with mental health problems.
In the theoretical part, first some basic terms (such as mental health, mental disorder, risk factors and safety factors for the development of mental disorders) are explained. It is researched, what the mental health condition in Slovenia and in the rest of Europe is like, especially with children and the youth. Some of the most common mental disorders in childhood and adolescence are also presented. Furthermore, this subject matter is placed into the school environment. In the next to last chapter of the theoretical part, the school’s counselling service is described together with its basic principles and tasks. The last part includes the role of the school’s counselling service in prevention, offering help and prevention of those pupils and students’ stigmatization that have mental health problems.
In the empirical part of the thesis, the results of the qualitative research are introduced. Three half-structured interviews were conducted with school counsellors at a primary school, a secondary school and at a school for service industries. The interview questions are divided into sections, and they are: to what extend are school counsellors coming across the topic of mental health; are the preventive activities related to this topic being performed; which are (in their opinion) the key signs to recognize individual cases of pupils/students with mental health problems; how do they cooperate with external institutions/experts, the class, teachers and parents; what is their opinion on how well they are qualified in the field of preventive functioning, recognizing concrete cases and offering help to pupils/students with mental health issues.
Based on the received results it can be concluded that the school’s counselling service has got an important role when it comes to working with pupils/students with mental health issues. The interviewed school counsellors often come across with the subject matter of mental health, most often this is in the form of remedial service. In their opinion, there are fewer preventive activities than remedial services. Pupils and students with such problems often search for their help self-initiatively. A change in behavior, such as avoiding social contacts, a change in mood and a change of friends’ circle are the key signs that the interviewed school counsellors named as the signs used to recognize the mental health issues. They stress the importance of conversation and special education about such issues in connection with prejudice confrontation. The research shows that the interviewed school counsellors want to gain more specific knowledge concerning individual mental disorders and concrete instructions on how to offer help to pupils and students with mental health problems.
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