Mental health and experiences of school attendance through the Irish Education Welfare Service.
Open accessAbstract
This article explores the impact of mental health on school attendance. This study is based on PhD research (2020) involving young people referred to the Statutory Irish Education Welfare Service (EWS). These young people were referred to the Service for poor school attendance or non-school attendance and presented with school refusal behaviours. Truancy was not considered a factor in the absenteeism; parents were aware of the absences and admitted that they were unable to get their children to attend school or return to school. This article specifically examines the relationship between mental health and school attendance through a qualitative research piece and uses four of the original seven case study samples from the PhD research. In the original research thirty-five people were interviewed including young people, their parents, agency workers, school staff and a district court Judge. The research indicates how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), trauma, bereavement, parental mental health and bullying all have significant impact on school attendance and engagement, and how inadequate supports for young people, struggling with complex issues, result in prolonged periods of school absenteeism.
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Previous qualitative studies on student perspectives identify attendance-enabling elements including individual supports, positive class climate, supportive relationships with peers and teachers, structured, safe, or adapted learning environments, alongside family involvement and individual factors such as motivation and hope.
“These include individual supports (Halligan and Cryer, 2022;Hejl et al., 2024;Flynn et al., 2024), positive class climate, supportive relationships with peers and teachers, structured, safe, or adapted learning environments”
From Their voices matter: student and professional perspectives on overcoming school attendance problems in the context of social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties (2025) · cites this paper as Flynn et al., 2024
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Enderle, C. (2025) · School Mental Health · doi:10.1007/s12310-025-09764-z · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Enderle, C., Kotschy, L., Ricking, H., & Kreitz-Sandberg, S. (2025) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2025.1627098 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
- Authors
- O Flynn, S., Cahill, K., & Connolly, T.
- ORCID
- O Flynn, Sinead
- Venue
- Routledge Open Research
- Publisher
- F1000 Research Ltd
- Published
- 2024-12-17
- Volume
- 2
- Pages
- 35
- ISSN
- 2755-1245 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4405462200
- Cited by
- 2
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2
- FWCI
- 2.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Routledge Open Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Tusla Child and Family Agency
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Youth Substance Use and School Attendance
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Speech and Hearing › School Health and Nursing Education
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Keywords
- school attendance, school refusal, mental health, youth welfare services, adverse childhood experiences, trauma, bereavement, parental mental health, bullying, school absenteeism, youth
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