Mental illness in school – A counselors perspective - The purpose of the study is to examine school counselors work with students (13-15 years of age) who are struggling with mental illness. Focus on mental illness isdiscussed in a school context. From the school counselors perspective questionslike, what kind of working methods are they using and, how they collaborate areexamined. The research design is based on a qualitative approach, with ten Semistructured interviews with ten different informants who work as a counsellor at 10different schools around Skåne. The theories that highlights and are used foranalyzing the empirical material are the ecological systems theory (also calleddevelopment in context or human ecology theory), social facts theory, networktheory and network and exchange theory. The theories overall highlights theimportance of knowledge what causes the mental illness and the importance ofcollaboration between different authorities. Results in the study shows that, fromthe counselors experience, mental illness is increasing among younger studentsand is often related to stress caused by different factors within the school. Thestudy show a pattern that the counselors work with the same type of counsellingmethods. Some of them also mentions new types of technique in their work withthe children such as DISA and COOL kids. Another pattern is that the counselorshighlights the importance of collaboration, both within school but also with otherauthorities. A pattern is also that the school counselors find that the collaborationis difficult and that other authorities do not always want to collaborate, authoritieslike the social services and the child psychiatry. This is a very serious problemknowing that the mental illness is increasing. Another pattern in the study is thatthe counselors point out that they need more time to support the students, andmore understanding from politicians about their work of helping the student in theschool.