The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that affect treating youth with school absenteeism issues via interviews with professional social workers and others who encounter these youth daily. The following research question was explored in this study:

• What are current methods of working with adolescent school refusal behavior?
• What is the outlook on future prospects in related to current work methods?

The study used a qualitative research design, based on seven semi-structured interviews. The focus point of the interviews were what methods seemed successful when working with school refusal, challenges the field encounters and how future treatment prospects were viewed. The interviewees were from organizations working solely with school absenteeism, such as school counselors and social workers. The findings were analyzed through a reflexive thematic analysis and a social constructionism framework was applied.

In the interviews, all underlined that school absenteeism is a relatively new area and how it was hard to estimate concrete success factors and future prospects. From the interviews, seven important themes were identified that could be contributors to successful rehabilitation of school refusal. Mental health, school environment and inter-organizational cooperation, parental involvement when working with school refusal, socialization and groups, individually tailored programs, preemptive interaction and future work are the themes found in the study.

The findings were that it is hard to see clear success factors for addressing school refusal, but the identified themes could contribute to the treatment process. Important voices, those of the youth themselves, are missing from the discourse on this topic. Future work should expand research and practice, and include the youth themselves.