Browsing by Author "Greus, Eerika"

The aim of this study was to examine what is relevant to education regarding adolescents' experiences in relation to mental health protective and risk factors, and how their speech reflects their future plans. This study examined factors that are related to well-being and mental health, which were adolescents' strengths, successes in school, experiences and atmosphere in upper comprehensive school, friendships, teacher-student relationships, and future plans. This study was conducted in collaboration with This life of mine -project. The study is qualitative and its data was collected from two schools in the Uusimaa region through free-form questionnaires (n=16) and thematic interviews (n=4) in 2019. Adolescents' in this study consisted of 8th and 9th grade students who have earlier participated in the This life of mine -workshops. Thematic design was used as the method of data analysis. The results indicated that there were many protective and risk factors of mental health in adolescents' experiences. Protective factors included the presence of friends at school, ability to name one's own strengths and successes, positive school experiences and the presence of an adult at school that adolescent can discuss with. Mental health risk factors included lack of friends at school, stress, negative school experiences, for example due to poor teacher-student relationship or too easy school assignments, and the inability to name one's own strengths and successes. It is a sign of wellbeing for adolescents' to plan their future, and most of the people in this study were able to name some of their future plans. Although 65 % of the adolescents' in this study had many protective factors in their lives, it should be noted that up to 20 % had multiple risk factors in their experiences, and 15 % had something in between. Also links between different themegroups emerged. For example, there was a clear connection between naming one's own strengths and experiences of success. Those who named their own strengths were also linked to positive and diverse plans for their future. Teacher-student relationships also had a connection with the positivity of the school experiences. Those adolescents' who did not have a close adult in school also had negative school experiences. As a conclusion there should be more strength-teaching in schools, and versatile feedback methods should be used in all school work. This would help adolescents' in the process of noticing and naming own strengths and successes at school, which would have a impact on the school experiences and well-being. Investing in teacher-student relationships also supports the well-being of students. In addition, the level of school assignments should be adjusted to the needs of each student so that the assignments would support the adolescents’ learning.