"..Litt mer frem med brystkassa for helsesøstre og den jobben de gjør" : psykisk helsearbeid i skolen: læreres beskrivelser og erfaringer omkring helsesøsters rolle og funksjon

Abstract

The background for this project is adolescent mental health and collaboration between school nurses and teachers. Surveys show challenges connected to this kind of work. The intention is to reveal knowledge aiming school nurses and leaders of public health service, for improving the quality of collaboration. The topic is: “How do school teachers describe and experience the school nurse’s acting and role, concerning student mental health service?” Data material is collected by semi-structured interviews of six teachers practicing in secondary classes. The conversations are digitally taped and systematic text condensation is used for data analysis. The findings can be categorized in different types of roles. “Included expert” means that the school nurse is included as an expert on physical and mental health issues. The respondents have little experience with school nurse’s competence on health promoting and preventive work, and she is not included in psychosocial promoting studentmass actions. As “Peer” she is included on the same level as the teachers, where the roles concerning psychosocial work don’t differ. “Paying visits” is explained by the school nurse working single concerning the students, and the fact that she is not automatically included in the school. None of them taking initiative, might cause little collaboration. “To be available” is pointed out because the school nurse’s time allocated in school health service, matters a lot to the collaboration. It seems that time available, the teacher’s knowledge of the school nurse’s competence on mental health issues, as well as mental health promoting and preventive work, matters to the quality of the collaboration. Keywords: Mental health promoting and preventive work, teachers, school nurses, collaboration, including, role definition, availability