In Helsinki, everyone – regardless of their background or starting point – should be able to live a good life and pursue their dreams. All of Helsinki’s residents should feel like they belong. We are resolutely working to ensure that every resident of Helsinki can live a good life in our city.
Our aim is to make Helsinki one of the least segregated cities in Europe, now and in the future. The city is committed to combating regional segregation and inequality between residents. We devote special attention to keeping differentiations between the realities of children and young people to a minimum. We are resolutely working to improve wellbeing in every neighbourhood of the city and support every resident on their journey through life. The city’s divisions collaborate to prevent differentiation between residential areas, combat segregation and reduce inequality, while also including third sector operators in this work.
Helsinki’s diverse selection of education services, social and health services, and culture and leisure services create the conditions for a good life. We pay attention to any differentiation between residential areas and use needs-based assessment to make sure that the services in different areas meet genuine resident need.
We will strengthen the wellbeing of children and young people in a holistic way. Through prevention, multidisciplinary collaboration and early intervention, we can stop many problems from arising or getting worse. The city will make a greater number of trained adults available to schoolchildren by investing in school youth work and school coaches. We will intensify cooperation between homes and schools.
We will ensure that all children and young people acquire a strong command of basic knowledge and skills during their school journey, while also receiving the support they need. We will raise participation rates in early childhood education and care, in addition to devoting special attention to children who speak a language other than Finnish or Swedish at home. Our goal is for all children to have participated in early childhood education and care by the time they turn five years old. This is also helping us lay the groundwork for the introduction of two years of pre-primary education before children start school.
All children in Helsinki have an equal right to an education. We will increase basic education’s needs-based funding, the allocation of which will rely on a newly adopted research-based funding distribution and calculation model. We will strengthen the learning journeys of children who speak a first language other than Finnish or Swedish and we will resolutely work to ensure that only those children and young people who genuinely need classes in second language Finnish (S2) or Swedish (R2) are referred to it. No child that has attended early childhood education and completed comprehensive school should have a further need for S2 or R2 language instruction.
All children and young people must be able to receive help when they need it. We will continue to implement Helsinki’s therapy guarantee by ensuring swift access to low-threshold mental health services. We will also monitor how well the entire service chain for mental health services for children and young people functions.
Making sure that all children and young people have the opportunity to participate in at least one recreational activity in part assures the existence of safe communities. It is therefore important that the city identifies those children and young people who would not otherwise have this opportunity.
Special attention will be devoted to young people who are, or are at risk of, ending up outside the labour market or education and training. We are working across the board to prevent youth exclusion with a broad spectrum of targeted preventive services. The City of Helsinki will continue to implement the Finnish Model for Leisure Activities, a national programme that funds after-school clubs. We will allocate additional fixed-term funding for the duration of the strategy period to provide recreational activities to children and young people who would otherwise be excluded or unable to participate.
We will strengthen families’ trust in functioning primary healthcare and ensure that children that are ill receive treatment quickly. We support parenting with low-threshold services across the city’s divisions. We will make sure that student services have enough resources to support children and young people, especially those with psychiatric and neuropsychiatric issues. Youth work and an active presence in young people's everyday lives help us identify situations that require intervention. Youth services will have a comprehensive presence in the different areas of the city. We will ensure that child welfare services, psychiatric care and schools work together towards the best interests of children and young people. We will continue to use the Toivo peer support model and establish hybrid child welfare services units to address demanding cases.
Promoting health and wellbeing plays a central role in ensuring the overall welfare of our residents. In Helsinki's Welfare Plan, we focus in particular on the reduction of disparities in people’s wellbeing and the promotion of daily exercise and an active lifestyle.
We will make sure that Helsinki’s network of social and health service organisations can continue their preventive work to improve resident wellbeing. We will continue to provide preventive support for Helsinki residents with the joint development of service chains by the different divisions and third sector operators.
We promote the health and wellbeing of our older population. Our services should in particular reach out to older Helsinki residents who are at risk of marginalisation. We take the expanding older population into consideration in our planning of the city’s different services. We will safeguard access to services with non-digital methods for people that require it. We will ensure flexible access to 24-hour care when needed. We will develop a diverse range of housing options for older people, including family care and communal living.
We will reduce loneliness among older people by enabling interactions and participation. We will offer seniors over the age of 68 free admission to the city’s swimming halls between 11.00 and 15.00 on weekdays. Senior centres will offer a broad spectrum of activities that support healthy lifestyles, an active life and a close community. We will help informal caregivers cope with their workload, give them support and provide them with flexible opportunities to take time off by adding to the selection of services provided.
We will ensure that fundamental and human rights are honoured in our application of the new Disability Services Act. We will secure the subjective rights of people with disabilities and a range of services that meet their individual needs.
Through the city’s patrolling and outreach services, we will effectively find people in need of help who are unable to seek support on their own. This is also of importance in the prevention of polarisation and crime. We will lower the threshold for accessing services and prevent residents from falling into debt by facilitating customer fee relief and easing collection practices.
We will respond to the growing problem of substance abuse by strengthening our substance abuse services. In order to prevent drug-related deaths and develop the quality of substance abuse work, Helsinki will draw up a substance abuse services strategy and an action plan for preventing drug-related deaths. We will devote special attention to reducing the number of drug-related deaths among young people. We will ensure that people with substance abuse issues also have access to mental health services. We will implement a programme to eliminate Hepatitis C in Helsinki. For those that need more acute psychiatric and multidisciplinary care, we will make sure they have access to the necessary treatment and are able to live a life of dignity. We will secure access to specialist psychiatric care in outpatient and inpatient settings.
We commit to ending homelessness in Helsinki by the year 2030. We will draw up a homelessness programme for the council term so we can seamlessly continue our work to assist the unhoused population. We will work to ensure the adequacy of supported housing and access to housing counselling.