Implementation study on school social work in Burgenland

This mandate is based not least on the finding that school social work in Burgenland - apart from a local initiative and a pilot project - is a hitherto untapped field.

The research design of the school social work implementation study is structurally organised "bottom up" and "top down" in and around the school system and its support systems. It utilises a triangulative mixed-methods or between-methods approach. In addition to the current discourse in the specialist literature, the findings of a future search with around 160 participants as part of the "School Social Work Conference" form the basis for the models of school social work to be researched and evaluated. In addition, more than 30 experts in the Burgenland school system (school supervisory authorities, school management, counselling teachers) and, in particular, school social workers in ongoing Austrian projects in the federal states were involved by means of guided individual interviews and focus group interviews. In the primary target group of pupils, a Burgenland-wide online survey was conducted at new secondary schools.

Socio-spatial-regional aspects, opportunities, risks, scope of impact, previous experience with and in psychosocial support systems at school as well as development perspectives form the description and evaluation horizon of the planning units "location model", "region model" and "networked campus model".

Starting with the simple location model, which reaches a total of 39% of NMS pupils with a support ratio of 1:300 and achieves a small-scale effect, the authors differentiate the models up to the first expansion stage of a "networked campus model". This implementation model of school social work reaches 100% of the new secondary schools and also indirectly involves the primary schools in the respective campus, particularly in the transition to the NMS.

The costs that can be anticipated for the respective model are forecast in particular in correlation with the degree of coverage aimed for, the support ratio and the intended direction of professional development. Practised variants of cost recovery contributions and assumptions regarding return on investment are also taken into account.

A quantitative survey in all 3rd and 4th grades of the new secondary schools is aimed at around 3000 mostly 12-14 year old pupils throughout Burgenland.

Lifeworld-oriented questions relating to learning, leisure activities, personal problems, family, circle of friends, etc. and the children's expectations of the school support system in this regard also reveal gaps that need to be addressed specifically and as a priority in the first phase of school social work to be implemented, in parallel to the existing level of utilisation and awareness of psychosocial resources that are already regularly available.

Ultimately, the study also condenses the results of the research process into clear minimum requirements for potential supporting institutions as well as recommendations regarding regional structures and the anchoring of school authority and social work quality assurance for school social work in Burgenland, so that it can work successfully in the field of tension between school organisation, pedagogy, school social work community work and increasing multi-professionalism in schools.