THOUGHTS ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING INTENSIVE COURSE

The first key note lecture was poverty in welfare state by Sakari Kainulainen. It woke me up to think about the supporting of mental health and well-being among the homeless and underprivileged groups. We have structural things that are causing a poverty and sooner than you know, there's a possibility to go from mainstream to marginal. The thing is that we need to shake those peoples a littlebit to wake up for their own situation, not just give them something to stop the freefall. I actually got very much knowledge of this lecture about Finland's current situation and how it's showed on different areas. The main point is that we have to pay attention to that group of peoples, who are living on social, because they have learned to be helpless.

The thing that I liked most about this weekend was that we had honor to listen Päivi Rissanen and her story. It reminded me, how important it is, to treat others as you wish that you would have been dealed with. Patient's service map in Finland can be quite large and it is very important that the patient feels that there is really somebody who cares for him/her. You might be his/hers only hope.

I think that the most interesting part of this weekend was the study tour in Global clinic. It's producing health services for paperless immigrants. It gave me very much new knowledge, and the work that they do, is amazing. I wasn't aware that things here in Finland are in so bad condition. The thing is that limiting access to health care does not save money. But if we treat people when they need necessary healthcare and not only when they need emergency healthcare, we could save resources and money in a long term. To get more information about their work, go to www.globalclinic.fi

This weekend was a good experience also because there were students from our group but also from Norway and Sweden. It was nice to have a 'coffee table conversations' about the differences and similarities in education systems and work as a nurse, in our respective countries.

Who am I?

Mirikle Nousiainen, Student in Diaconia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Master degree programme in health promotion, Finland.

Mental Health and Wellbeing – Focus on Homeless and Underprivileged Populations

I attended this two-day seminar with high expectations, and luckily, I got even more than I expected!

The seminar was organized well and the programme was extremely interesting. Especially the quest speakers deserve to be applauded for their presentations. I want to highlight few of those presentations that made a huge impact on me.

Päivi Rissanen's presentation: "A hopeless case? An auto ethnography of getting mentally ill and rehabilitation of it" was impressive and highly emotional. One could not listen to her and not be touched by her life story.  In her presentation she taught me that dreams can come true, anything is possible and one should never give up. Also, she is an example of a person who bravely talks about her mental health problems without shame or quilt, and wants to use her difficult experiences as a tool for helping others. An eye-opener for sure.

Secondly I want to mention Jemina Heinonen's presentation about Global Clinic. The information she gave was all new to me, including the fact that there even is such a place! She painted a very sad picture of the situation concerning undocumented migrants in Finland and their rights and limited possibilities concerning health care. I was also stricken by the numbers of how much cheaper it would actually become to treat these people equally, than prevent them from having treatment. The situation in Finland is shameful and unbearable.

Finally, I want to mention our guest students who I got to know during the weekend, those especially from Norway. I learned a lot about the service system in Norway and how it differs from our own. There was a lot that we could learn about their way of dealing with migrants, not to mention implement their good practices in our service system.

Who am I?

Tiia Suutarinen

Master level student at Diak

Bachelor of Social Services

Youth worker

Works in the Helsinki City Youth Department

Does outreach youth work in the streets of downtown Helsinki

Facebook (work): Tiia Asemanseutu

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.