Research project ATEM Attendance Engagement Mentorship: promoting school engagement with Check & Connect – a structured mentoring intervention
The project focuses on how the Check & Connect mentoring programme can strengthen students’ school engagement and attendance, while helping to prevent problematic school absenteeism.
Photo: Katja Kircher/Mostphotos.
School absenteeism or school attendance problems (SAP) have increased in Sweden. SAP is a complex phenomenon linked to individual and contextual factors. Persistent SAP increases risks of adverse outcomes in terms of mental health, school completion, and societal participation.
School completion is a protective factor for children at risk, but the school system has high rates of students experiencing school failure with an overrepresentation of students with Neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDD). There are various interventions offered to students with SAP, but national, comprehensive evaluations are not available. Preventive interventions are recommended. The aim of the research is to introduce and investigate the outcomes of Check & Connect: a structured, evidence-based student engagement program for students showing early warning signs of disengagement, in order to prevent the occurrence of SAP – beginning with a
small trial.
Questions:
- Does the mentor program C&C improve students' school engagement, attendance, and wellbeing at school in a small trial?
- What are the experiences of mentors, school staff, school health teams, students, and parents involved in the trial?
- Based on the pilot study, is C&C suitable for implementation and scale-up in the Swedish school context or which adaptations are recommended?
School attendance problems (SAP), school refusal, school phobia, fear of school, involuntary school absenteeism are concepts employed to describe phenomena that are increasing in educational settings, including Sweden. The experience of SAP may be related to various factors, but it is linked over time to increased risks of negative outcomes in terms of school failure, dropout, and mental health issues. The experience of school belonging, positive relationships and achieving regular school completion are protective for children at-risk.
SAP is of great concern given the high number of 15-year-olds who fail to achieve the minimum levels of attendance at the end of compulsory schooling: students with disabilities are overrepresented in this group.
These issues have been objects of governmental inquiry SOU 2016:94 Regeringskansliet, 2017) , with research and
reports pinpointing to the need to mobilize resources and improve provisions. Educational boards of local educational authorities, principals, School Health Services are looking for promising evidence-based programs that could improve the situation of students that risk to be disengaged and eventually dropout.
Among the reports, a review on interventions to prevent school failure, dropout and unemployment among youth with disability was commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs (FORTE, Allodi 2024). Among the interventions one approach builds on mentoring: teachers are trained as mentors, who are able to recognize early signals of disengagement, establish long-term relationships with students, collaborate with parents and support further students' school engagement (Freeman & Simonsen 2015; Fehérvári & Varga, 2023). Preventive structured early interventions of SAP seems not practiced yet in schools in Sweden. Preventing SAP and improving school engagement already at early ages are thus highly motivated. Check & Connect
is an evidence-based mentor program whose contents and values can be suitable for the Swedish context.
References
Allodi, Westling M. (2024). Tidiga insatser och stöd hela vägen för säkrad sysselsättning: Kunskapsöversikt om förebyggande insatser för att hindra att unga med psykisk ohälsa och funktionsnedsättning hamnar utanför arbete och studier. Forte – Forskningsrådet för hälsa, arbetsliv och välfärd. https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-237127
Allodi, M. W., Granlund, M., Siljehag, E., Danielsson, H., & Bölte, S. (2025). Tidiga insatser och specialpedagogiska interventioner i olika skepnader: Forskning, policy och praktik. In M. Allodi Westling & H. Selenius(red.) Specialpedagogisk forskning och tidiga insatser. Stockholm University Press. https://doi.org/10.16993/bct.b
Fehérvári, A., & Varga, A. (2023). Mentoring as prevention of early school leaving: A qualitative systematic literature review. Frontiers in Education, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1156725
Freeman, J., & Simonsen, B. (2015). Examining the impact of policy and practice interventions on high school dropout and school completion rates: A systematic review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 85(2), 205–248.
Gustafsson, J.-E., Allodi Westling, M., Alin Åkerman, Eriksson, C., Eriksson, L., Fischbein, S., Granlund, M., Gustafsson, P., Ljungdahl, S., Ogden, T., & Persson, R. S. (2010). School, Learning and Mental Health: A systematic review. Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien. https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-39016
Regeringskansliet (2017, January 9). Saknad! Uppmärksamma elevers frånvaro och agera [Text]. Regeringen och Regeringskansliet.
https://www.regeringen.se/rattsliga-dokument/statens-offentliga-utredningar/2017/01/sou-201694/