Mental health and wellbeing - focus on homeless and underprivileged populations

The seminar in different ways gathered together the things of underprivileged groups of people and began with a way fitting the theme, with a musical perfomance by the band which consist of people having  substitution treatment. I was especially impressed by Päivi Rissanen, and her doctoral thesis "A Hopeless Case? An Autoethnography of Getting Mentally Ill and Rehabilitation of It" on her own illness, treatment and recovery. The study also uncovered problems with the Finnish healthcare system. She told that she had met 300 nurses and 40 doctors during those seven years and 40 hospital periods, that was the most difficult time of her illness. Although she was regarded as chronically ill, she recovered and therefore was not a hopeless case. She told that the process of healing had begun with a single question asked at the right time by her nurse: "Päivi, do you really want to live rest of your life in a hospital?".

For me the best part of this seminar was study tour to supported housing unit for minor asylum seekers. Unit is for youngsters aged between 16-17 and there asuu 40 boys at a moment. Basic function in this unit is to offer safe living conditions for asylum for the duration of the process. Only two of these youngsters who came to Finland last autumn have already got residence permits. After that Ely Centre can relocate them also to some other municipality. This raises the question, will all those  relationships made here be cut off with the change of municipality. Luckily, almost all these youngsters have some kind of contact with some relative. In the operation of the unit there are also ca. hundred volunteers that i.e. guide different activies such as homework tutoring or cooking class. The large amount of volunteers suprised me positively. I'm interested in things related to immigration becuse I also act myself as a representative for an unaccompanied minor asylum seeker from Afghanistan.

One of the themes was Undocumented migration and life without rights in welfare state. We in a group with other students from the Nordic countries thought about i.e. what happens to those who receive negative decisions to their asylum application. Do those returned to their home country stay or will they leave again to seek their future elsewhere? All the things highlighted in the seminar where such, that they evoked questions for myself to ponder on afterwards.

Who am I?

Sanna Hakaheimo, Bachelor of social services and now completing Master degree studies in promotion of the health and wellbeing of people in danger of marginalisation.

Occupational therapy and underprivileged groups

Occupational therapists are uniquely qualified to work with people with physical and mental challenges, like homeless people. Occupational therapy interventions focus on training life skills, job skills, interpersonal skills and money management. Although occupational therapy have recognised their role working with marginalised groups, it can be problematic because they often fell unprepared for this role, due to the lack of education on this topic. At the same time many of the other proffesions don´t even know about what occupational therapy is, or what an important role they can have (Grandisson and more, 2009).

CMOP or "the canadian model of occupational performance" is a model that occupational therapists uses. This model can be a good tool for findig out which interventions to provide to those who are homeless (Grandisson and more, 2009).

Occupational therapists role in the work with asylum seekers

The role of occupational therapy is to empower members of the community to recognize their own potential through meaningful occupations and to be included in the society. Occupational therapists work with the promotion of health and wellbeing in all people.

One type of intervention that occupational therapist can use while working with homeless and underprivileged groups like asylum seeker is intervention based on a community-centered approach. This intervention is based on developing a humanistisc, transcultural and holistic program, with meaningful occupations as the core of intervention. This intervention applies a client-centered approach where the aim is to promote the sence of independenc and self sufficient for the community. Working transcultural means that occupational therapy introduces cultural meaningful occupations in the intervention. While holistic occupational therapy means understanding the human being as a physical, psychosocial and sociopolitical being, whose essence is spiritual (Algado & Burgman 2005).

One of the underprivileged groups with whom occupational therapist can use the community-centered approach are minor asylum seekers.  To understand children and minors and to help them express themselves we must speak their language. The best way to do this is by using games and play, which is their most essential and meaningful occupation. Play can be used to provide support and to enable the children and youth to communicate their thoughts, emotions, feelings and desires (Algado & Burgman 2005). Different kind of techniques and activities that can be used are: drawing, finger painting, theater, dancing, mime, construction, etc. Engaging in meaningful occupations can help them to look for and find meaning in their experiences that they had suffered and to give new meaning to their daily lives. It appears that occupation has the power to evoke spirit, and spirit has the power to evoke healing (Algado & Burgman 2005).  

Another way to help them get through the trauma is to let the children and youth write their narratives as survivors. Narrative theory suggests that children and youth can benefit from expresssing traumtic experiences as a part of the process of the normalization (Algado & Burgman 2005).

It is also important to listen to these children and youth with respect and try to understand them. Support and be patient with them while they try to recover and return to their natural environment. We as ccupational therapists can help them to be included in the community by promoting community awarness about the problems that these children and youth has faced. These can for example be done by giving infromation to schools, institutions, meetings etc. (Algado & Burgman 2005).

Supported housing unit for minor asylum seekers

We got to visit the supported housing unit for minor asylum seekers in one of our study tours. this was an experience we felt we learned a lot from. This is a house unit with a total of 40 boys in the age of 16-17 years old. The function of this house unit is to offer safe living conditions for asylum seekers during their waiting process to be granted asylum or not.

We learned that some of the boys had been fleeing for 3 whole years before they came to Finland. Because of bad experiences with autorities earlier, it was hard to earn the boy`s trust and we where told that this was a process that took time. The staff experienced a lot of fighting and arguing among the boys in the beginning, they explained this behavior due to all the big changes in the boys life. They are in a new country, in a new house with new people who are strangers to them and they have to follow new rules.

The housing unit focuses on education and school for the boys, were they get to learn the finnish language and about the finnish cultur. They arrange activities like homework clubs, sports clubs, cooking clubs, painting and drawing sessions etc. Football was an activity that the boys were especially fond off. These activities were important for the boys to get their mind on other things and to forget about the waiting proscess and the fact that they dont know about their future. Do they get to stay in Finland? And if they do, were in finland will they be moved to?

Communication and interaction was important so they used a translater alot so that they could understand the boys, their feelings and wishes and in this way better help them.  They used something called cable coaching, a group consisting of the asylum seekers, staff members, volunteers and sometimes students . This coaching method was used to talk about their experiences before, life now, dreams for the future and values.  To do so they often used drawings as a method to let the boys better express them selves.

Literature:

• Algado, S.S. & Burgman, I. (2005) Occupational therapy intervention with children survivors of war In: Kronenberg. F., Algado, S.S. & Pollard, N. Occupational therapy without borders- Learning from the spirit of survivours. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
• Grandisson. M, Mitchell-Carvalho. M, Tang. V, Korner-Bitensky. N (2009) "Occupational therapists' perceptions of their role with people who are homeless"
  British Journal of Occupational Therapy

Who are we?

Authors:	Karoline Gundersen(24), Fjoralba Sadja (age 25), May Lene Ommundsen (age 25)
Institution	VID vitenskapelig høgskole (Diakonhjemmet)
Field of study	Occupational therapy
Level of study	Bachelor (third year)
Place of study	Sandnes
Country	Norway

WE ALL NEED EACH OTHER

In the last few days a thought has come to my mind that how much we people need each other in this world. It seems that people are somehow individualcentered and they feel that their are cabable of doing all things by themselves. Yet we still need each other, as we always have and always will need in the future.

On saturday morning we listened a seminar by Sakari Kaunulainen about Poverty in wellfare. Sakari had gathered lots of different facts and statistics and the presentation was good. I was left thinking of a picture of happiness and sadness, richness and poverty. A person doesn't achieve happiness with money and material things but instead with other people and love. Social problems and social exclusion can be prevented. But it demands sense of community and taking care of each other.

"A participating person has a feeling that he or she is meaningful part of entity, sosiety. Person is heard as a human being and he or she affects the course of his or her life as well as the things around him or her." (Sakari Kainulainen 23.4.2016)

I'm doing my thesis about immigrants and their social intregration to Finland. I have been thinking a lot about the things that we can do to help them settle in Finland and preventing the risk of social exclusion. We still have a lot to do with the same target with native Finnish youngsters.

Last week I was interviewing a Somali woman and asked her what was the hardest thing in settling down to Finland? She told me that people don't talk to foreigners that much or meet each other easily. Nobody greets you in the streets and you don't have feelings of belonging to some local society. It's hard to find new friends when you don't speak the native lanquage and there is not many places where to meet friends and share your thoughts.

I visited a facility called Supported Housing Unit for Minor Asylum Seekers with my seminar group. There lives about 40 Young men from different parts of the world. They don't yet know if they are allowed to stay in Finland, and if they will, where will they be located. In Finland we have a system that all minor immigrants system places fast into schooling and other activities. This is a good thing to help people integrating and preventing unnecessary waiting and frustration. Mika told us that many of asylum seekers have already learnd some finnish. They are active in eg. playing football and other activities. They are intrested in integrating to Finnish society but how does our system really help them in that? 

Nowadays the system is so that they can be located into any part of Finland after receiving recidence permit. This means that a person who is barely used to living in Helsinki, may end up to Joensuu in six months. That means starting from the beginning life once again.

I have been thinking of the situation and I feel that we are obligated to take care of each other, including the immigrants. We should develop a system or network of "godfathers and godmothers" or "sponsor families" that keep in touch with each other and also keep the immigarants active in networking. These would also be useful for preventing native Finns from the risk of social exclosure but especially important for immigrants for helping them to settle in the local society.

Who am I? 

 

I'm Reija Arola, studying Masters degree of social services at DIAK.  I currently work as a project coordinator at Hyvinkää Youth Housing Association but I used to be a deacon at Parish of Tuusula. I'm a mother of five.

Are refugees a death of the European Union or a possibility of new development?

In my opinion, the subject of refugees was one of the most topical subjects of seminar.  More than a million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe in 2015. The European Commissioner for internal affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos called the events the worst crisis of migration since World War II. Syrians make no more than 25-30% in a present wave of migrants. Many of modern refugees in my opinion are seekers of the better life, or economic migrants. I know that there are among them also true sufferers running from wars. Terrorists and dangerous social elements are using a situation under the guise of refugees get into Europe. Many immigrants are natives of the countries of Asia and Africa where terrible epidemics as tuberculosis or Ebola virus and other dangerous infections.

When we talked in the small groups on emigrant's crisis in Europe, questions were more than answers. What guarantees that arrival of thousands of potential carriers of fatal viruses will not lead to epidemics in Europe exist?  Present refugees are ready extremely aggressively: they demand, but do not ask as earlier, and are ready to advocate own interests up to the end. Are we in Europe capable to integrate migrants into civilized European society? What will all these people engaged in? Will we be able to provide all with work or social benefits? Will they begin to trade in crime? To what consequences – cultural, social, political and economic – will give change of religious-national structure of the European society? Will be Europe former or will lose the shape of the keeper of Christian cultural values? Will be new immigrants live by rules of the European life, or they will have the enclave where the laws, language, etc., that is the state in the state? How we can prevent events, which have taken place in Paris and Brussels?  

Huge money allocated for the solution of problems with migrants. The reception center provides accommodation for asylum seekers, to organize the necessary social and health services, taking care of, where appropriate, subsistence, organize work and study activity and the necessary interpretation services and gives advice on obtaining legal aid.  Should spend Europe so many forces and money for adaptation of refugees?

Europe grows old and birth rate strongly falls. Aging of the population Europe annually loses 0.2% of economy. In 35 years of 28% of the population of the EU's people of pension's age will make. The question of their worthy maintenance will be actual in many countries of Europe. Over time, the situation risks to turn back full financial crisis as the countries of Europe will not be able to pay to all pensioners of pension. Refugees could become an actual solution.

The most terrible part of immigration crisis are illegal immigrants.  In Finland, just 30-40 % of current asylum seekers will receive residence permit. Many will remain here not legally. It is necessary to look for decisions urgently on an actual problem. Exclusion from society forms the greatest threat to the country's security and individuals residing in the country illegally are at particularly high risk of becoming excluded.  Many undocumented immigrants will live in absolute poverty. Immigrants who will get negative decisions to their asylum application can bring crime, illegal work and economic problems for the Scandinavian countries. Europe's countries will need more housing, temporary workplaces, school for waiting families, provided health care, food packs, better communication between organizations and more volunteers work.  Immigrants' sending back to their home countries just move the problem. It has to solve there and we should find better ways for EU to help the countries were the refugees come from. I am very happy that in Helsinki city made the great decision in 2013 to provide urgent health care for all undocumented immigrants for the same prices that Helsinki residents pay and to arrange comprehensive health care services for children and pregnant women among the undocumented population. I have been pleasantly surprised having learned that in Helsinki, Turku and Oulu works the Global Clinic organization, which gives free medical and legal help to immigrants.

Who am I?

 

Svetlana Mustafi, 33. Student of Diaconia University of Applied Sciences in Finland, Master of Degree programme in Promotion of health and wellbeing at risk of exclusion.

Literature

Jemina Heinonen, 2016.  Global Clinic. Health services for paperless immigrants. Introduction at Diak. 23.4.16.

Marja Katisko,(by Ikali Karvinen) 2016. Undocumented migration and life without rights in welfare state. Introduction at Diak 24.4.2016.

Sakari Kainulainen, 2016. Poverty in Welfare State. Introduction at Diak. 23.4.16.

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21690007-economist-meets-european-commissioner-migration-home-affairs

http://www.kotouttaminen.fi/kotouttaminen/pakolaisten_vastaanotto/turvapaikanhakijat/vastaanottokeskukset

About underpriviledged and asylum seekers

Norddiakonia intensive course is no completed for us Diak master degree students. we participated only for Saturday to Sunday 23-24.4 And after travelling about thousand kilometers there is couple of ideas about past course. I really think that we had gathered to discuss about ver important subject as well being of underpriviledged. For really good discussion we woud have needed much more time.

In welfare states like Finland about 80 to 85 per cent of citizens are doing well. We could think that it is good number because only 15-20 per cent isn't doing well. But every person who isn't doing well is too much. Well being shoud right for all of us. What could we do more? I don't have answers, only questions like that. Many cities and organizations are doing good job, without them, things could be worse. Good exampe is Kurvi addiction treatment service where I and some other participants visited. It gives drug treatment for addiction. We were told that they really see there stories of success, there are time to time people who can win their addiction. It was great too see that it was not only about drug treatment but they saw persons as a whole and they had many differnce services there like doctor, needle exchange, help for social and financial problems also. And Kurvi also gives clients community where they can belong.

Me all this made think my own work as youth leader in church. I think we could do more to find those families who might have many different kind of problems and find good ways to work with them.

We were talking also about asylum seekers. People are talking that too many of them is coming to Finland. Last year we had peak about 30 000. Yesterday I realized that it really is not big amount. While doing group work, one Swedish teacher told us, that in Sweden came last year 160 000 and they really has problem because many asylum seeekers can't find th place to sleep so they sleep on the streets. I  am not sure but I think it was our arc bishop Kari Mäkinen who gave good reminder for us. We are talking about refugee crisis, but it is not here the crisis, it is in these countries where is imbossible to live safe life.

Who am I?

My name is Tomi Hakkarainen and I study master degree in Diaconia University of Applied Science in Helsinki. Now I have study break from my work but after studies I carrie on working with Children about age 7-15 year old and with their families. I am working at Finnish Evangelic-Lutheran parish in Vaasa.