Workshop series to promote effective experiences of participation initiated successfully

The purpose of the workshops started in August is to clarify the future needs and effective developmental direction of services for disabled children and young people in the Western Uusimaa Wellbeing Services County. The workshops comprise service users and professionals working together to gather ideas on what services should be like from the perspective of disabled children, young people and their families, how they should work and what impact they should have. The project will be produced in cooperation with the Nordic Healthcare Group (NHG) and the ‘Paljon palveluja tarvitsevat asiakkaat (PPT)’ (Frequent attenders) project steered by the Western Uusimaa Wellbeing Services County.  

The first workshop focused on mapping the current situation. During the summer, a preliminary survey was conducted on users of services in the region, which mapped their ideas on what works, potential challenges or problems as well as future hopes for services. A total of 44 service users responded to the preliminary survey and almost all municipalities in the region were represented in the responses. The results of the survey were examined together in the workshop, after which the description of the current status was supplemented by service users and professionals working in the services participating in the workshop.  

In light of the work carried out so far, the current situation appears to be very varied. Some people felt that many services work well, that cooperation with professionals is smooth, and that support is available at e.g. schools where morning and afternoon care also works well. Others' experiences of the same services were very different, and according to a few respondents, nothing really works. The challenges highlighted included the fragmentation of services and lack of harmonisation in terms of information and operators, in particular, as well as the challenging and draining role of guardians and families in trying to navigate the jumble of services on offer. Transition phases, e.g. the transition of a young person to adult services, were also seen as difficult points requiring special attention so that the child or young person does not fall through the cracks, as it were.  

Hopes for the future were largely related to addressing the challenges of the current situation. Easy, multi-channel access to services and better access to information were highlighted along with e.g. individual and flexible planning of services for children and young people as well as transfer of the coordination responsibility to the Wellbeing Services County instead of the family. People want to have an operator, such as a designated, dedicated employee or employee in charge, who takes an active approach to managing the services of a child or a young person and their family and can be contacted when necessary. Better cooperation, networking and clearly agreed division of tasks between different actors and between the child, young person and family were also highlighted.  

At the second workshop in the series held on 14 September, work focused even more heavily on clarifying the vision for the future. The target path of a child and young person and their family was described from the perspective of children of different ages, and particular consideration was given to making transition periods easier. In order to facilitate transition phases,  such as transitions from day care centre to elementary school, lower secondary school, upper secondary school and adult services,  e.g. early anticipation of the future and well-functioning ‘transfer meetings’ between different actors when the need for services of the child, young person and family changes were discussed. The second workshop was attended by an impressive number of current service users, and we were able to gather a lot of valuable ideas and views on what should be taken into account in the future on the path of children and young people at different stages and their families. The workshop ended with a discussion on themes and objectives that would be particularly important in planning the future of the wellbeing services county.  

The workshop series will continue on 5 October, when we will be discussing concrete ways of achieving the target path. The cooperation will culminate on 26 October, when we will be presenting the results of the project to workshop participants and to a wider group of interested parties.   

If you are interested in participating in the workshops, contact the project's contact persons. 

More information:  

Satu Meriläinen-Porras, Project Manager for the ‘Paljon palveluja tarvitsevat asiakkaat’ (Frequent attenders) project, Preparation for the Western Uusimaa Wellbeing Services County, satu.merilainen-porras@luvn.fi   

Heta Kulla-Mykkänen, Project Manager for the preparation of child welfare and family legal services, Preparation for the Western Uusimaa Wellbeing Services County, heta.kulla-mykkanen@luvn.fi 

Martina Nygård, Chief Social Worker for Disability Services, City of Espoo, martina.nygard@espoo.fi  

Riitta Eskola, Chief Planner for Rehabilitation, City of Espoo, riitta.eskola@espoo.fi   

Anna-Kaisa Asikainen, Project Manager, Nordic Healthcare Group, anna-kaisa.asikainen@nhg.fi   



Mika Kaartinen, Senior Partner, Nordic Healthcare Group, mika.kaartinen@nhg.fi   

Nordic Healthcare Group (NHG) is a social welfare and health care expert and a provider of analytics services. NHG employs more than 200 social welfare and health care professionals and has more than 2,000 client projects and more than 200 million analysed patient visits. NHG will implement the ‘Vaikuttava osallisuuden kokemus vammaispalveluissa’ project pro bono for the Western Uusimaa Wellbeing Services County. https://nhg.fi/(external link)  

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