Giving centre-ground to client-focussed social welfare services

Väärälä is deputy chairperson of the working group set up to reform social welfare legislation. At the end of May the working group submitted an interim report to the Minister of Health and Social Services Paula Risikko. This brings together proposals for directing the central principles and policy lines of the social welfare reform process. The working group intends to prepare, based on the interim report, a draft for the new law on social welfare by the end of 2011. At the same time there will be an examination of all the special laws that relate to the current law on social welfare.

The aim is that when the fixed-term Paras framework law, which concerns the reform of local government and services throughout Finland, comes to an end at the beginning of 2013, the central elements of social and health care legislation would comprise the Social Welfare Act, directing the content social welfare, and the Health Care Act directing the content of health care, as well as the the act on the organization of social and health care that unites them.

Väärälä says that one of the most central guiding principles of the reform of the social welfare system is that everyone is entitled to a good and secure everyday life at all stages of life. People must be assisted in their own daily environment, which means minimizing living in institutions and the role of taking children into care, and the effective development of non-institutional care.

"Isolating people in institutions does not support their own motivation. There particularly needs to be a change of direction in the areas of child protection, care of older people and disability services. In addition, there should be a so-called service or care guarantee implemented in the areas of care and support measures, which is where the need for assistance is the greatest. In this way we can ensure that a service is available where it is required. The more someone is in a vulnerable situation the greater their rights should be to receive support from society," Väärälä stresses.

Social welfare should also be equipped to respond better to the various needs of residents in Finland. The problem with the present service system is that it is disjointed, and it is often unclear where the responsibility lies.

"In terms of dealing with complex problems, it would be important for each functionary always to have a defined overall responsibility for the client and all the services associated with them. By making the division of responsibility clear, we can improve the availability of services and prevent clients' problems from deepening."

According to the working group's interim report, versatile collaboration between the different actors, particularly health care, is a prerequisite for social services that are client-centred.

"There are common areas in social and health care, for instance concerning substance abuse and mental health issues, the long-term care of older people, home-based services and the support and services for children and families. The common elements involved are already incorporated in a new government bill, and the intention is also to incorporate them later in the new social welfare act," says Väärälä.

The working group has proposed that laws that have interface with other administrative sectors also be examined. For instance, there needs to be a better regulation of the joint activity and division of labour between employment administration and social welfare. The aim is that the points of emphasis of social welfare would be transferred in the new legislation to welfare promotion, prevention and early intervention. In addition to personal counselling and guidance, social welfare and the actors that promote it should be given better attention within all societal planning and decision-making.

In its own way the interim report on reforming social welfare legislation is historically significant. The last time such an extensive overhaul of social welfare was carried out in Finland was at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. In Väärälä's view it is important to consider the desired direction of the social service system.

"There is a fear within social welfare activity that society is increasingly starting to go back to the world of the past where matters that traditionally concern social welfare are medical problems and wherein social welfare is purely limited to caring for the poor. There is also a concern that due to the medicalization and juridical and pedagogical focus, ethical attentiveness and the care perspective in dealing with clients are forgotten. In its report, the working group wanted to emphasize that in the future too social welfare will serve the whole population, and therefore must have an extensive role in society."

Anni Syrjäläinen