Customers involved in building the future

Right now, customer participation is needed in the planning of the service strategy for the Western Uusimaa wellbeing services county to be prepared this year. The service strategy explains what kind of services the wellbeing services county should focus on in the coming years. The service strategy is planned together with Western Uusimaa residents, and everyone's participation is important. However, client inclusion will not end with the completion of the service strategy but will continue to be an important part of the wellbeing services county's offering.

In disability services, customer participation has been strengthened through various opportunities for participation, for example by organising group discussions. These and some individual interviews have been organised for customers of housing services, work and day activities and transport services from different parts of the Western Uusimaa wellbeing services county. The aim of the discussions is to collect the ideas, wishes and visions of the persons with disabilities on the future wellbeing services county and its services. The group discussions have asked, for example, how the person would like to be contacted by a professional, what support would be needed, what is not currently available and how the services should be developed in the future. 

In a group discussion organised for the parents of children with disabilities, individual discretion instead of average services, speed in decision-making and legal decisions were considered very important. The parents need statutory service counselling that openly informs them of all services they are entitled to. The discussions also highlighted considering the overall situation of families. The employees' competence and permission to be customer-oriented are very important, as is a confidential relationship between the employees and the family. Employee turnover is a major problem and there is a lack of understanding of disability. The utilisation of experience expertise is considered very important.

The group discussions are still ongoing, but we can already see how important it is to consider the availability of services, the individual needs of customers, access to information about different services, accessibility and the functionality of services as a whole. Well-functioning services enable people to live: to participate, function and make their own choices.

In the planning of the current service strategy, experience experts who are disabled in various ways have worked for persons with disabilities, users of different services and persons working as informal carers. Instructors and unit supervisors, for instance, have interviewed the experience experts. They have conducted discussions in the most appropriate ways: in person with one person or a group, through videoconferencing and by telephone. 

In the future, experience expertise will be strengthened in disability services, and it will be introduced in different ways in the development of the services. 

It is important to involve the views and expertise of the Disability Council of the wellbeing services county in the preparation of the service strategy from the beginning. The discussion on the service strategy will be launched with the Disability Council in a workshop organised in the spring.

The disability services also prepare competitive tendering for transports in the wellbeing services county, in which customer participation has been strengthened and cooperation started in the planning stage. A survey on transport services has been sent to all customers of transport services in the wellbeing services county, and they have been invited to participate in the discussion on the development of transport services. Interaction with customers, Disability and Senior Councils and associations will continue throughout the tendering process.

In the future, it will be important to utilise experience expertise in the development of the wellbeing services county's services and to consider how it can be utilised even more effectively.