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Support for everyday life

Wear a face mask in social and health care services

We recommend that everyone over the age of 12 uses a face mask in all facilities within social and health care services.

Read more here: Coronavirus updates from Helsinki


Social work offices for disability services

A customer and the staff work together to determine the customer’s service need. An evaluation of the service need is used to prepare a service plan.

Disability services social work promotes the ability of disabled persons to manage themselves and seeks to reduce restrictions and obstacles caused by the disability.


Disability services during the coronavirus pandemic

Work and day activities

The City’s own work and day activity units have been closed until further notice with the exception of one unit. Activity Centre Tanhua provides absolutely necessary care for clients living in their childhood home whose parents are unable to arrange their care in any other way.

Discretionary short-term care and the statutory days of leave of informal care support
Because of the risk of infection, it is recommended that you avoid short-term care that is not absolutely necessary. The City’s short-term care units will contact families who have an agreed care period coming up. They will discuss the risks with the families and negotiate the cancellation of the care period unless carrying it out is absolutely necessary. The same approach is recommended for purchased service units. When the client or their family member is ill, the agreed short-term care period cannot be performed at the unit even if it is absolutely necessary. In such a situation, you must contact a social worker so that those needs can be met in a safe manner.

Personal assistance
Services need to be secured for those clients who need them to ensure their daily functions and coping at home. Necessary errands outside the home also need to be secured while taking the guidelines for risk groups into account. Recreational activities can be carried out by going out into the nearby environment, for example, instead of going to public places. In the case of residents in housing units, the matter will be agreed upon in advance with the client and the housing unit staff. Furthermore, the assistant must not enter the housing unit but wait for the client outside the unit instead. If a service provider is unable to provide the service (e.g. due to quarantine), the client and their social worker must be immediately informed of the matter. In this case, the City will arrange the necessary service for the client in another way.

Housing services
All visits to housing units are banned. If a resident needs personal assistance for something such as outdoor activities, for example, this must be agreed upon in advance with the client and the unit’s staff, taking the risks into account. The visiting ban also applies to personal assistance, meaning that the assistant must wait outside the unit for the client to arrive for the agreed outdoor activities.The client or their loved ones may contact their own worker, the social services coronavirus helpline or the emergency social services in the evening and at night in a situation where they cannot continue to live at home, there is no need for hospital treatment and service cannot be arranged at home. In other crisis situations, the client or their loved ones may also reach out if the client is not able to live at home.

Contact information

You can also leave a call-back request with the office secretary Mon–Fri 8.15–16.00, tel. +358 9 3102 3100.
Social welfare counselling on weekdays 9.00–16.00 on +358 9 310 44400 and via chat 9.00–16.00 from 23 March onwards.
Outside office hours, contact emergency social services, tel. +358 20 696 006 every day around the clock.

Other help

Services to support independent living

The objective of the services is to enable disabled persons to live alone and independently in their own dwellings without a need of constant institutional care. Available services help to improve the functionality of the dwellings for their disabled residents.


Personal assistance

The requirement for the provision of personal assistance is that the disabled person can express what they want to do and for what activities they would like assistance. They must also be able to control any assistance situation.


Home care services

Home care services support customers living at home with such daily activities that they cannot manage on their own. Home care provides care and services that enable customers to live in their homes safely even when their functional capacity weakens.

Home care consists of care and medical operations, distribution of medicines and contact care. The services include assistance with obtaining meal and shopping services, a safety telephone and assistive devices.

Customers can request home care from their local health station or a home care instructor.


Transport services

The transport service for people with severe disabilities, as defined by the Disability Services Act, is applied for via the social work for the disabled in the customer's own residential area from the social counsellor of the transport service with a transport service application

Mobility-related services: Mobility training for the visually impaired.


Short-term care

Short-term care is meant to help caregivers—people caring at home for a disabled, ailing or weakened family member or loved one, to maintain their strength. Short-term care for care recipients is provided at disability group homes, in family care and at institutions.


Support for informal care

Informal care refers to the treatment and care of an elderly, disabled or ill person in his or her home with the help of a family member or a loved one of the person in question.

Support for informal care consists of services given to the dependant, remuneration for the caretaker, leave, and other supporting services for informal care.

People under 65 years of age apply for support for informal care at the regional office of social work services for the disabled and people over 65 years of age apply for it at the social and local work office of their municipality.




 22.01.2021 17:45