Skolkuratorns samtal med unga migranter i gränslandet mellan stödsamtal och behandling

Abstract

School social workers’ counseling of Young Migrants at the Interface Between Supportive Counseling and Therapy

The school social worker has an important role in the support of young people in vulnerable situations. Counselling is central to their professional practice, not least when working with young migrants, a group where trauma and experiences of violence may be part of their life story and migration process. The purpose of the study is to increase the understanding of counseling as a tool for school social workers in the professional meeting with young migrants. The empirical data include qualitative interviews with 15 school social workers who meet this group daily. The interviews have been analysed using a qualitative thematic analysis. The findings show that the delimitation of which counseling lies within the school social worker’s responsibility is not clear. The fact that school social workers experience that other parts of the welfare system are often unavailable to young migrants forces them to go beyond what they describe as part of their professional responsibility and provide therapeutic counselling. The school social worker uses different tools and methods in their counseling and mixes them based on their own area of interest, education, and experience. The study concludes that the accessibility that newly arrived young migrants have with the school counselor creates a role where they are the “only” professional available to offer support and counseling. This means that the school social workers need to go outside their professional domain. The school social workers discretion in relation to the type of counseling and how it is conducted appears to be unlimited.