This study theorised schools’ influence on adolescent self-harm, informed by the perspectives of the research participants. It centred upon the secondary school context in Wales.
76 research participants were gained from 5 purposefully sampled secondary schools in Wales and organisations within the wider youth support system network.
A participatory approach informed the research interviews, through the use of Participatory Appraisal.
A qualitative research safety protocol was designed to inform the research project. This was to address the ethical concerns which centred upon completing adolescent self-harm research with youth participants. For more details regarding this point, please see the following: https://talkingresearch.com/ethics/
The project results illustrated:
- Problems in pupils’ and staff’s adolescent self-harm health education and knowledge;
- Significant adolescent self-harm research access barriers for pupils;
- The perceived school context factors in how adolescent self-harm came to be present in pupils’ own lives;
- STIGMA being the main institutional, socio-cultural level influence upon adolescent self-harm in the school context. The study delineated a grounded theory model of stigma, with its categories and sub-categories.
A more detailed summary of the results is at the bottom of this page.
This research project furthers our understanding of the institutional-level conditions that can risk accumulative negative impacts at an individual-level for adolescent self-harm.
The findings can be taken into account within system-level preventive intervention design for schools in Wales.
DETAILED RESULTS SUMMARY:
The project gained an understanding of how pupils and school staff conceptualised adolescent self-harm within their secondary school context, through presenting the main themes in pupils’ and school staff’s definition of adolescent self-harm.
There was an absence of adolescent self-harm health education in the school context for pupils and for the majority of school staff. This study captured some of the critical issues that stemmed from this point.
Hence there were barriers within the organisational management practices for adolescent self-harm, as school staff had not received specific training regarding this health topic.
These issues led to support barriers being present for pupils’ self-harm needs, with staff perceiving themselves to be untrained and unqualified to provide this support.
An important key results finding was that pupils in this community-based study perceived themselves to have common contact and lived experiences of self-harm (through their own self-harm, or their peers’ self-harm), whereas the majority of school staff in this study did not.
Hence pupils’ knowledge of adolescent self-harm was drawn from their lived experiences, and not from school health education as there was none about adolescent self-harm in the school context.
For pupils, having no health education and little contact with school staff when they may be having common contact with adolescent self-harm (due to their own or their peers’ self-harm) could present many risks.
The research project also gained an understanding of the conceptualisation of adolescent self-harm and the school context influences, drawn from the youth research participants. All of these youth participants had lived experience of adolescent self-harm in their secondary school context, through their own self-harm and that of their peers’ self-harm.
The main conceptualisation of adolescent self-harm found within both types of lived experiences was of how adolescent self-harm came to be present in pupils’ lives in school. However, this differed.
Within the lived experience of pupils’ own self-harm, the school context circumstances and risk factors that led them to self-harm were: peer violence, its pervasive nature, and the lack of help for the peer violence in school. Also pupils’ help-seeking behaviours to school staff for their self-harm were perceived as being ignored, which was a factor in why their self-harm continued to be present whilst they were in school. The lack of help and support in school within pupils’ experiences of peer violence and also within their help seeking points to school staff for their self-harm support needs, these were unexpected results findings.
Within the lived experiences of peers’ self-harm, the school context circumstances and risk factors that led adolescent self-harm to first become visible to pupils was due to their peers’ self-harm health crisis episodes. This led pupils to attempt to provide their support to peers within these crises, a crisis support role which brought these pupils into close contact with adolescent self-harm in their school context, sometimes for many years. Pupils’ contact with their peers’ acute self-harm crises, the support that they provided within these crises, and the lack of school support available for them in this complex crisis carer role (which could be a long term support role that pupils provided for their peers in school) were unexpected results findings.
The research project also completed a grounded theory analysis of the main institutional, socio-cultural level influence upon adolescent self-harm in the school context, drawn from the research participants’ perspectives. This analysis delivered a theoretical framework from within which the aforementioned results findings could be further contextualised.
The grounded theory analysis demonstrated that a main institutional, socio-cultural level influence upon adolescent self-harm in the secondary school context is that of stigma.
Therefore the project enabled a detailed grounded theory model of stigma to be generated, drawn from the multiple stakeholder perspectives of: youth with lived experience of adolescent self-harm in their secondary school; school staff; and wider support network professionals. In this way, school’s influence upon adolescent self-harm was theorised, which was the main research aim of this study.
The grounded theory model of stigma illustrates how stigma:
- Shaped pupils’ and school staff’s conceptualisation of adolescent self-harm in the school context;
- Impacted the existing organisational management practices for adolescent self-harm;
- Structured the institutional norms, values and assumptions in the school setting in regards to adolescent self-harm.
Please see chapters 4, 5 and 6 in the following document link for the complete research findings: