Families with multiple challenges face difficulties in different areas of their daily lives. Difficult situations occur in interpersonal relationships, physical and mental health, material and economic matters, and school. Parents and children from socially vulnerable families face great stress in coping with the above challenges. Therefore, it is important that these families have access to various forms of help and support, including the school counselling service. The difficulties faced by parents and children in the family and in the community also affect the child's educational process, which can manifest itself in learning and behavioural difficulties that prevent the child from succeeding in school. The professional competence, accessibility, commitment and flexibility of school counsellors can make an important contribution to the quality of relationships and the success of the collaboration with vulnerable families. In the theoretical part, I present various theoretical contents that are important for understanding the topic of my master's thesis: the understanding of the concept of family, the characteristics that define families with multiple challenges, the concepts we use in social work when we work with these families, the basic characteristics and tasks of the school counselling service, the contribution of social work within the school counselling service when it comes to families with multiple challenges, the principles and forms of collaboration between the school counselling service and vulnerable families. I point out the importance of ensuring that all voices of family members, including the voice of children, are heard in the process of co-creating help and support. In the empirical section, I use interviews to explore the reasons why vulnerable families collaborate with the school counselling service, their experiences with the school counselling service, their experiences of the relationship with counselling professionals, and opportunities for improved quality and successful collaboration with the school counselling service. My results show that parents from families with multiple challenges are predominantly satisfied with collaboration with the school counselling service. They have a positive attitude toward the school social worker and have mostly good experiences with her. Nonetheless, there is much room for improvement in the school counselling service's work with vulnerable families (e.g., involving all family members more in collaboration, conducting evaluations together with the family, providing more condensed family support). The results of my research help make families with multiple challenges more visible and audible, and encourage the school counselling service to develop a partnership with children and parents.
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