Utilizing professional relationships with at-risk children

Abstract

A child can be considered at risk if their basic needs or not met or they are in danger of not having these needs met. Highly abnormal living conditions can directly harm personal development, learning, and integration into society. Working with at-risk children requires various educational approaches whose successful implementation depends greatly on the expertise of the personnel involved. This work aims to evaluate the use of relationship and educators’ understanding of it in interventions. To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 teaching staff1 who work with children2 in various environments and organizations and subsequently analysed using open coding followed by thematic analysis. Interviews were conducted with eight children’s home educators, eight counsellors and therapists, and ten elementary school teachers. Significant aspects of the understanding and use of relationship-building were identified which, while differing based on the focus of the contributors, demonstrated that relationship-building was the common denominator in all successful interventions in education and re-education.