Young People with Complex Needs as a Particular Challenge for the Education System

One of the phenomena that predicts poorer educational outcomes for young people, as well as poorer outcomes in other areas, is certainly the phenomenon of complex needs, i.e., challenges that cut across different domains, often combining psychosocial wellbeing, physical and mental health, socioeconomic background, the burden of different challenges on the young persons’ family, a non-dominant ethnic background, learning difficulties and other aspects. A key challenge with complex needs is the inability of systems (educational and others) to respond appropriately to them, resulting in young people being sent from door to door and being excluded, as well as other adverse responses for both parties (young people and services, educational and others). In order to understand the emergence of complex needs or multiple vulnerabilities, we need to analyse them using an intersectional perspective. In this paper, data from a national Slovenian study entitled Support Networks for Young People in Psychosocial Distress are analysed using a subsample of 32 young people from the overall sample of 203 interviewees. The subsample represents young people whose interviews show the greatest clustering of distress in various contexts of life. The interviews with the selected participants are qualitatively analysed using content analysis based on a scheme of key social systems: school/education, family, peer networks, local community and other (formal) support services. All of these systems are analysed in terms of being supportive or threatening according to the perception of the young person. In all of the systems, more threatening than supportive aspects were reported by young people with complex needs. An analysis of both kinds of factors can help us to think about the changes needed in educational and other systems in order to make them more responsive to the needs of particularly vulnerable young people.