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The purpose of this study is to describe how the principal and the special pedagogue perceive and define pupil ill-health prevention and pupil health enhancement in their work. It explores how they understand the role they play in elevhälsan, literally meaning pupils' health. And how meetings are run and decisions are made within the pupils' health teams at selected schools. Questions that will be answered are: How do the principal and the special pedagogue perceive pupil ill-health prevention and health enhancement work of the pupil health team at the school? How do the principal and the special pedagogue perceive their roles in the health of the pupils? How are decisions made and followed through at the pupil healthcare meetings? This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews and phenomenological inspired methodology. Pupil health teams from three different schools were interviewed, and in total three principals and five special pedagogues took part in this study. The analysis of the results of this study show that further consensus between the different health promoting coordinators is needed in the implementation of the pupil ill-health prevention and health enhancement work. Further findings show inconsistencies in how the different pupil health teams conduct their meetings and in how decisions are implemented. A majority of the pupil health teams used the meetings to address existing problems, rather than ill-health prevention and health promotion efforts. The principals demonstrated that they have a greater consensus in how they define their role in promoting pupil health, as opposed to the special pedagogues who expressed a more varied picture of their role. This study also demonstrates that the pupil health team that was most effective in pupil health developments was the team that had further education in pupil health. Findings also show that the different health coordinators have an important role in furthering development and accessibility of the learning environment for the pupils, and in contributing to creating a 'school for everyone'. The demands on the special pedagogues to meet all pupils' differences, and to see these differences as an asset, are great. The requirement of a 'school for everyone' is a lot to ask for. To create a school that has learning environments tailored to everyone's individual needs requires an understanding and consensus between the different pupil health coordinators. This can sometimes be a dilemma, yet the pupil health coordinators have an important role to fill in these realms. This study also found that it was of utmost importance to have a clearly defined organisation and definition of the what the ill-health prevention and health enhancement work involved. To promote this the pupil health coordinators must create a meeting culture that supports the pupil ill-health prevention and health promotional work. |
