Study Weekend – Head Full of Lessons Learned

Norddiakoni intensive course exceed my expectations. When we heard that the seminar is going to be on weekend I wasn't very cheerful. But when the program was published it started to interest me more. Some lectures more than others sounded very compelling.

Saturday, good day

On Saturday most of program was very rewarding and invited reflections. The lecture of Poverty in welfare state by Sakari Kainulainen was one of the interesting parts of the day. Even if some of the issues were quite familiar already, some issues made think about the topic more deeply and from another point of view. There were some interesting facts I would like to mention. In Finland it appears South and Western parts have less problems than North and East. A research about poverty of young people between years 1991-2013 obtained that situation have been bad all the time for example in Lapland. Lapland and the situation of poverty there interests me especially because my homecity is located in Lapland and I have been living there my whole childhood and teenage years. Now after living away almost ten years I actually can see the difference and things that might cause that the situation with young people is really worse in North that it is in South. You can't even compare the services between North and South and I think it is a big factor. For example in my homecity there isn't all needed services and some of the services offers only the essential affairs. It's sad that the habitation has a wide meaning in person's mental health and well-being. To improve this we have a lot to do!

The other very interesting part in program was the story of Päivi Rissanen. Päivi has walked her own path from serious mental health illness to scholar. With her story she gives hope to other rehabilitees and also to professional helpers. She urged that everyone has their own way to rehabilitate and have their own experiences to share. In her story turned out that it is possible to reach your dreams. But there was something in her story that made me uncomfortable. Päivi showed one slide of the services she had to use on her way. There was so many doctors and nurses she had met, so many units and proceedings. That is not the way it should be and hopefully in future the plan wouldn't be like that.

All different, all equal       

At the end of Saturday's session there was presentation of Global Clinic. I found it very interesting and timely as the situation in Europe is mutable. There were many good and interesting points in demonstrator's presentation and it somehow opened my eyes. I have to admit that I didn't know well enough how dissonant things are between for example constitution law and the practice of health care for undocumented migrants. How much cheaper and easier, not to mention how humane it would be to treat these people way they should! The interesting fact was that there wasn't so many people coming to Global Clinic because of the mental health problems. But it made sense what demonstrator told about it. The number is low because of many reasons. Global Clinic is not able to prescripe medicine that they can't organize follow-up. Patients of Global Clinic don't usually speak the same language as the helpers. Concentration to mental health problems would require high-quality of interpretation and understanding. Also mental health problems can be tabu in some cultures. Mental health can be understood in different ways in other cultures. Of that I have an example in making our thesis. We were interviewing a muslim woman and one question in our interview was how does the religion affects to mental health. The word mental health she had to look from the dictionary. After she answered the question it was obvious that in her culture mental health means a bit different that how we understand it.

On Sunday we continued with the same theme, undocumented migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Europe. On sunday we were having much more group tasks with the visiting students from other Nordic countries. It was opening to hear their experiences and thoughts. To conclude I must say that even if these days required a lot of concentration, it was really worth of it. I'm glad I was able to be part of this intensive course.

Who am I?

My name is Jenna Tervaniemi. I am studying master degree program in Diaconia University of Applied Sciences. Studies focuses on health and welfare promotion of people who are at risk of exclusion. My basic education is nurse.