Skolfrånvaro - En kvalitativ studie om hur stödpersonal i grundskolans elevhälsoteam upplever problematisk skolfrånvaro och hur skolhunden bidrar i interventionerna

Sammanfattning: Problematic school absenteeism is currently a complex and increasing challenge in society. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how school teachers experience problematic absenteeism how they have worked to promote school attendance in children and youths and how they’ve reintegrated them into school after being absent. This thesis will also investigate different actors' perspectives, special education teachers, school social workers, and dog educators to show the importance of the cooperation of these different networks around the children. This is a qualitative study based on six semi-structured interviews with professionals based at the schools. Dog therapy, motivation, teamwork, cooperation and building relationships with families, professionals, and children, school structure, and environment are the foundation of the explanations given of why absenteeism occurs. Theories of the Ecological system and Socio-emotional are used together with previous research to analyse the data. Concepts like alienation together with discretion are discussed. The results of this study show that school attendance is not only seen as a fundamental part of the well-being of the youths, but that falling out of school leads to serious future problems like criminality, drug abuse, and unemployment. The study also shows that there is a gap between the schools, the social services, and the psychiatric help clinics when it comes to cooperating with the youths that would need to be improved for optimal support, especially those with neuropsychiatric disabilities. Actions that did work according to the respondents are dog therapy, keeping a close eye on the absence daily to be able to catch the absence at an early stage and building relationships both between teachers and students and teachers and parents to keep a close cooperation.