Enhanced family work is intended for children and adolescents aged 0-17 who are customers of child welfare, and their parents.
The decision and application for the service is made by the child welfare social worker, who is responsible for the child's affairs.
The aim of enhanced family work is to strengthen the family's capabilities and engagement, as well as to support their strengths. It can be helpful, for example, in a situation where there is a need to strengthen the child-parent interaction, or to support the parent in acting as such, and to secure the child's growth and development.
This service is free of charge.
What is enhanced family work in practice
The content, frequency and duration of enhanced family work will be tailored to the individual needs of your family and the goals agreed in the customer and service plan. Usually, we schedule one to three appointments per week. The duration of an appointment is about 1.5–2 hours. The service will usually continue for up to a year.
We will adjust the appointments so that your family feels as great a benefit as possible.
The enhanced family work team will assign two social counsellors to your family, who will work in a pair with your family. Enhanced family work can also be carried out in partnership with other professionals working with the family. The pair will meet you at home or can arrange to meet the child at the kindergarten, school or our service points, which are located in Kallio, Itäkeskus, Vuosaari, Malmi, Maunula and Lassila. Our working hours are flexible, varying from 7 am to 8 pm on weekdays. We can occasionally arrange meetings on weekends as well.
In addition, enhanced family work can be carried out as a peer support group.
Preparation and documentation of the service plan
At the beginning of enhanced family work, we jointly prepare a service plan for enhanced family work, in which we record the needs for support and the goals, and agree on practical implementation and content. Our goal is to find and set common goals with your family that lead to the desired change in your family situation or achieve small progress.
We will document the progress of enhanced family work in Apotti with your family. If possible, your child is also included in the entries. The documentation will be displayed in the Maisa customer portal, if your family has enabled it.
Enhanced family work to help post-discharge care
Enhanced family work can also support your family when a social worker's goal is to assess your child's discharge from foster care. In this case, we will survey your family’s life situation and meet you, parents and children, both together and separately. We arrange these meetings at your home, a service point or, for example, the child's foster home.
Commitment is a requirement for success
A key requirement for success in enhanced family work is that your family recognises the need for change and is motivated to work to fix the issues. At the end of the process, in the final talk, we will review the summary of the work and your family's follow-up plans.