The purpose of primary, transitional phase institutional youth work is to promote the inclusion and influence of juvenile´s by creating the capacity and opportunities to individual actors. Youth work strengthens the community of educators at schools. The aim is to support juvenile growth, independence, community, knowledge and skills. Nuoska investigates the current situation and develops regionally and nationwide applicable models for schools.
Nuoska is one of six centers funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The centers form an entirety, which supports the implementation of the national youth work and policy program. Centres develop and promote the competence, expertise and information at the field of youth work in accordance with the Youth Act.
THE OBJECTIVES AND TASKS OF NUOSKA
1. Gather, publicize and disseminate good practices in cooperation in youth and education departments, which will make youth work in schools and educational institutions more common.
2. Model and develop forms and aspects of youth work in schools and educational institutions, so that youth work is high-quality and evaluation-based.
3. Strengthen bilingualism of centres of expertise activities by coordinating the Swedish-language activities of all six centres of expertise.
IMPLEMENTERS OF NUOSKA
A consortium is coordinated and administered by the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences’s youth research and development center Juvenia, which also developes models for secondary schools.
The consortium consists nationwide of nine executors which are:
- Finnish Association for Substance Abuse Prevention (Ehkäisevä päihdetyö Ehyt ry)
Developing models for multidisciplinary cooperation, as well as methodological training - Health-promoting voluntary organization and an expert institution (Folkhälsan förbund rf)
Maintaining network and communication of activities in Swedish-speaking learning institutions - Finland-Swedish Information and Cultural Centre (Förening Luckan rf)
Strengthening cooperation in Swedish environments and develop action models for bullying prevention - Association of Mental Health Finland (Mieli Suomen Mielenterveys ry)
Providing concrete tools and training to strengthen mental health skills - Finnish Youth Research Society (Nuorisotutkimusseura)
Evaluating the effectiveness and creating of indicators and quality criteria - Development centre Opinkirjo (Kehittämiskeskus Opinkirjo)
Developing methods and operating models that improve well-being - Municipal Youth Work Centre of expertice (Kunnallisen nuorisotyön osaamiskeskus Kanuuna)
Mapping and developing youth work based on the curriculum and developing cooperation between networks and the local community - City of Vantaa (Vantaan kaupunki)
Carrying out trainings, events and peer meetings and developing the functionality of professional dialogue - Åbo Akademi University (Åbo Akademi)
Researching phenomenom at the perspective of Swedish actors
You can follow our video releases from the Youtube playlist:
There are over 20 videos in total, with various topics related to youth work and especially school youth work. For example there’s topics of Uusi koulu X – communal youth work in schools and educational institutions, online youth work in schools during the pandemic, Welcome to school youth work – information about school youth workers tasks and good practices, supporting inclusion and human agency, multi-professional cooperation and the stages of youth work during the school year. You can search through the videos from the button on the upper right corner. The videos are in Finnish and Swedish. You can get English subtitles by setting them from the automatic subtitles.
The project budget is specified annually, changes possible.
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Kiilakoski, T. 2020. Country sheet on youth work in Finland. PDF-document.
