Fields of practice

All of Finland uses open access processes and individual events for supporting the welfare of local youth. In addition, social problems found in high risk populations are handled in collaboration with local/municipal authorities. Example: City of Helsinki Youth Services has local projects aimed at preventing conflicts happening in residential suburbs.

Adventure education is used to strengthen group cohesion, social skills and social responsibility. School camps and interventions are also used to address specific social needs and interaction problems. Example: City of Lahti comprehensive schools in collaboration with Lahti Youth Services use school camps to reach out to groups of pupils.

In Finland, interest in adventure education is growing rapidly in early childhood education where adventure education builds group cohesion, teaches the skills to take care of oneself and others and to ask for and give help. Adventure education strengthens a child’s relationship with nature and lays the foundation for environmental protection. Example: there are preschools where most activities and learning are carried out outdoors in the forest.

Child social work in Finland has traditionally used outdoor and adventure-based methods since the early days of its municipal child welfare services. Now, there’s a growing interest in building more clearly defined interventions and evaluating them in order to develop new evidence based on the effectiveness of these interventions. Example: Social impact bond (SIB) for children aims at finding new creative working methods for child welfare officials in all of Finland.

There is a growing interest in these areas for adopting more experiential methods to reach youth client groups and young adults that are unmotivated or unable to work on verbal level. Example: The Foundation for the Rehabilitation of Children and Young People and the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare are working with children and adolescents with severe neuropsychiatric symptoms in Paimio.