Adolescents’ perspectives on SSWs’ counselling practice in Swedish elementary schools: “plumb the depths and navigate to shore”
| Date | 15 December 2023 |
| Pages | 20-37 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-06-2023-0035 |
| Published date | 15 December 2023 |
| Author | Maria Kjellgren,Sara Lilliehorn,Urban Markström |
Adolescents’perspectives on SSWs’
counselling practice in Swedish
elementary schools: “plumb the depths
and navigate to shore”
Maria Kjellgren, Sara Lilliehorn and Urban Markström
Abstract
Purpose –This study aims to gain a comprehensive understanding of adolescent’s experiences of
individualschool social work counselling in Swedishelementary schools.
Design/methodology/approach –The study encompasses interviews with 16 adolescents about their
experiences of individual counselling with school social workers(SSWs). The data was analysed using
conventionalcontent analysis.
Findings –The main result was the adolescents’desire ‘‘to navigate to shore’’ to speak freelyabout their
whole lives witha professional SSW and find a ‘‘ safe haven,’’[...] where a trustingprofessional cared for
and comforted them in counselling. The counselling contact contributed to increased knowledgeabout
oneself. The resultsreveal the importance of the SSWs payingattention and listening to the adolescents’
narratives.The creation of a coherent life narrative enablesto finally end counselling and ‘‘Cast off.’’
Originality/value –The results highlight the importance of Swedish SSWs focusing on individual
counsellingsessions with adolescents to providea setting for growth.
Keywords School social work, Counselling, Adolescent perspective, Family factors, Ill-health
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
According to the World Health Organisation (2021 ), 14% of 10 to 19-year-olds experience
mental ill-health. Arslan (2019) and Huxtable (2022) point out [...]stron g associations between
school achievement and a variety of internalised and externalised pr oblems. Mental ill-health
conditions place adolescents into a higher risk group for educationa l difficulties (Olivier et al.,
2020), social exclusion (Barzeva et al.,2021) and lack of school belonging (Arslan, 2018).
Slaten et al. (2016) define school belonging as the importance of being heard and feeling
involved. Bethell et al. (2014) argued that the experience of school belonging and support
from friends and peers are two protective factors in school. Riley (2017) concluded that when
children have a sense of school belonging, they feel confident and safe. Anothe r preventive
factor (Bethell et al., 2014) is for SSWs to ensure that all children have positiv e relationships
with one or more adults.
Nowak (2020) argued that eligibilityfor upper secondary school is one of the most important
preventive efforts to avoid exclusion and to secure the skills required by the labour market
and adulthood. Furthermore, thereis a strong correlation between students’ socioeconomic
background and their school results (Nilsson, 2014;Folkha
¨lsomyndigheten, 2023). Societal
and economic conditions for children, woventogether with family and health conditions, are
Maria Kjellgren, Sara
Lilliehorn and Urban
Markstro
¨m are all based at
the Department of Social
Work, Umea
˚University,
Umea
˚, Sweden.
Received 17 June 2023
Revised 13 September 2023
Accepted 8 November 2023
©Maria Kjellgren, Sara
Lilliehorn and Urban
Markstro
¨m.Published by
Emerald Publishing Limited. This
article is published under the
Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone
may reproduce,
distribute, translate and create
derivative works of this article
(for both commercial and
non-commercial purposes), subject
to full attribution to the original
publication and authors. The full
terms of this licence may be
seen at http://creativecommons.
org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
Funding: The research was
funded by the Municipality of
A
˚re and Umea
˚University.
Ethics: The project was
approved by the Swedish
Ethical Review Authority (Dnr
2019-04934).
Disclosure statement: No
potential conflicts of interest
were reported by the authors.
PAGE 20 jJOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S SERVICES jVOL. 19 NO. 1 2024,pp. 20-37, Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-6660 DOI 10.1108/JCS-06-2023-0035
strongly correlated, according to Bruno and Be
cevi
c (2020). Regarding family-related
issues, the possibility of learning is reduced if a child is emotionally abused and/or
neglected (Maguire et al.,2015;Blodgett and Lanigan, 2018).
Swedish society has difficulties providing youth-friendly support in healthcare services for
adolescents with mental health problems, particularly those in need of care “in between”
psychosocial support and psychiatric treatment (Westberg Ha
¨ggstro
¨met al.,2020).
Attending a formal service can cause feelings of discomfort and loss of autonomy, so easily
accessed informal support is seen as preferable(Lynch et al.,2022). According to Swedish
law (SFS, 2018:1197), children have the right to receive support and to explain their
situation freely. Heimer et al. (2018) point out that it is particularly important to let children in
vulnerable circumstances have a say in their life situations. Michelson (2022a,2022b)
concluded that young people’snarratives can indicate what kind of support they need, what
kind of resistance they face from adults and the barriers they encounteron their road to self-
discovery. Here, the most relevant factor is “to be listened to” (Prout and James, 2015). The
young participants in Brown et al.’s (2019) study interpreted others’ listening in terms of
action and practical support from the social worker, and a belief that the social worker had
listened to them only when they had acted on what the young personasked for.
School is an institution that works on prevention, health promotion and remediation with
school social workers (SSWs) as the psychosocial experts in an interprofessional team. In
the Swedish school context, pupil health teams (PHT) have been organised as
multidisciplinary teams, including nurses, physicians, psychologists, special educational
teachers and SSWs. The PHT works to prevent school failure by providing assistance to
children at risk [Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner (SKR), 2022;Guva
˚and Hylander, 2017]
so that children become eligible fora national programme in upper secondary school.
In the UK and USA, there are both SSWs [British Association of Social Workers (BASW),
2023a, 2023b;National Association of Social Workers (NASW), 2023] and school-based
counsellors [British Association for Counsellors and Psychotherapist (BACP), 2023;
American School Counselor Association (ASCA), 2023]. Baginsky (2008) argued that
schools should assist with child welfare and take responsibility for safeguarding. SSWs in
Sweden have a combined profession of counsellingand social work (cf. Zabek et al.,2023),
which also includes a safeguarding perspective/position (cf. Beddoe, 2018;Rafter, 2022;
British Association of Social Workers BASW 2023b). One prominent task for Swedish SSWs
is to meet children’s needs by offering individual counselling (Kjellgren et al.,2022;
Kjellgren et al., 2023b). Individual counselling is described by the Swedish authorities as
“professional counselling, such as supporting, motivating and crisis counselling as well as
assessment of and counselling with individual pupils and their families” (Skolverket and
Socialstyrelsen, 2016, p. 31). Thefocus of the counselling depends on the individual SSW’s
flexibility when implementing a variety of practice elements to fit the needs of the specific
child and in relation to the school context and its prerequisites (Kjellgren et al.,2022). One
significant challenge is a lack of guidelines regarding the role or the execution of the SSW’s
work (Kjellgren et al., 2023a), which also seems to affect the SSW’s assurance of individual
counselling in a school setting. Even so, advantages are seen because all children and
adolescents spend a great deal of their time at school and could be offered counselling
within this familiar environment(Knight et al., 2018).
The overall aim of this study is to deepen our understanding of adolescents’ experiences of
individual SSW counsellingin Swedish elementary schools. Research questions included:
RQ1. What characterises SSWs’ individual counselling according to the adolescents’
experiencesand expressed needs?
RQ2. What core aspects of individualSSW counselling do adolescents find facilitating or
hampering?
VOL. 19 NO. 1 2024 jJOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S SERVICES jPAGE 21
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