Skolkuratorers erfarenheter av en global pandemi - Hur skolkuratorer resonerat om sina skäl för anpassningar av det psykosociala arbetet under COVID-19-pandemin

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to investigate school counselors’ reasonings as to why adaptations of their psychosocial work were made during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study was conducted through semi structured qualitative interviews held online with six school counselors who had worked at upper secondary schools in Skåne during the pandemic. The school counselors reasoned that digital tools had become a necessity following restrictions due to the pandemic. We found that the school counselors had found it hard to adapt to conducting in depth psychosocial work through digital means. The reason had primarily been that they had experienced difficulties with recognizing non-verbal cues. This had brought the school counselors to make the decision to have in-room meetings despite the ongoing pandemic. The school counselors also reasoned that they had had to become more creative and proactive in seeking contact with both students, students' families, and schoolteachers due to ordinary meeting grounds disappearing. The school counselors also argued that they had had to adapt their consultation and guidance with the teachers due to increased levels of stress amongst the teachers during the pandemic. Lastly, we found that the school counselors reasoned both differently as well as similarly as to why adaptations were made in their psychosocial work. The differences and similarities were mostly due to varying levels of discretion and personal preferences. Keywords: