Empowering Parenthood project 2026-2027

The City of Helsinki’s Social Services, Health Care and Rescue Services Division will implement the Empowering Parenthood project with co-funding from the European Social Fund in 2026–2027. The project is a joint initiative between Disability Services and the Wellbeing and Health Services for Families with Children. Other actors, such as NGOs, will also be invited to participate in joint development work.

Objectives of the project

The aim of the Strengthening Parenthood project is to ensure that families with children from immigrant backgrounds living in vulnerable situations receive timely and needs-based basic services. In addition, the objective is to secure parenting support across all services and to improve the accessibility of services.

In the project, we will strengthen the capacity of different actors to identify the needs of families and to guide and support them in accessing services in a timely manner. We will improve the accessibility of existing group activities and, where necessary, introduce new ways of working. We will further develop the feedback-informed approach used in services for families with children and enhance models related to support during separation and after separation.

The development framework is based on the perspective of collective impact. This enables better use of regional feedback and more active involvement of the target group in service development.

Within the project, we will further develop existing operating models to support vulnerable families and create a cooperation model between disability services and other social welfare services for families with children to better respond to needs related to parenting support.

Target groups of the project

The primary target group of the project consists of social and healthcare professionals who encounter vulnerable children and families with children from immigrant backgrounds.

The indirect target group includes vulnerable children from immigrant backgrounds, their family members, as well as their wider personal and professional networks.