maanantai 2. heinäkuuta 2018


 
 
Burnout and selfcare for the social work profession
 
In the 21st International Summer School in Social Work we had guests from 10 different countries. The atmosphere in the course was really cosy and conversational. We had student panels from different countries and we had also presentations about many interesting subjects. We chose to write about burnout and selfcare for the social work profession, because it’s interesting topic and also current issue in Finland. Dr. Donna Wampole from University of Southern Maine, USA, was giving us presentation about this theme. The presentation was really interesting, beneficial and also really entertaining. Donna Wampole encouraged us to take care of ourselves in the future when we are working as social workers.
Burnout is an international phenomenon which can happen to everyone around the world, especially to people who have demanding job, where they are helping other people and see all kinds of issues. In Finland there has been a lot of discussion about burn out among social workers. Many social workers have had to take a break from their profession to recover from it. Recovery from burnout can take many months.
 
Dr. Donna Wampole was telling us that compassion fatigue can turn into burnout. She was telling us that when we meet sad or unpleasant things, we begin to feel tense. Sometimes some cases can hit you and somehow really touches you and you can’t seem to let it go. Then you became emotionally exhausted. When you are emotionally exhausted, you might feel anxious, depressed, distress and anger and you need additional sleep. When someone is suffering from burnout, there can also be challenges falling or staying asleep, weight gain, poor eating habits and so on. However, burnout is a different experience for everyone.
Social work as a profession is quite demanding, because there is so many people that need help but there’s not enough resources to help everyone as fast as should. Especially in child protection there has been a huge crisis in Finland; one social worker has too many children to work with. This kind of situation can easily lead to social workers burnout.
When someone is suffering from burnout or stress, it is helpful to find ways to relax. For example, you can do something active and exercise or take a walk, whatever you find relaxing. Creative art and music can be helpful to someone, or spending time with family and friends. It also helps if you know yourself, for example if you are introvert, you might relax easier by yourself and extrovert relaxes better being with other people.
Mindfulness has been truly effective exercise in taking care of burnout patients. The origin of mindfulness is from Buddhism and it is commonly used in many therapies nowadays. Doing mindfulness, you need to concentrate on how you feel. ¨The awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment¨ (Kabat-Zinn 2003, pg. 145).
At the end of presentation, we tried to do mindfulness and it was really relaxing. We closed our eyes and just focused on to this moment. We also repeated positive thoughts and hoped positive things, even to people that we find a little bit challenging. It might be good to all of us to start doing mindfulness already, maybe we could prevent burnout that way!
Kati Frantti, Wilma Kallio
Social work students, University of Lapland
 
 
 

keskiviikko 13. kesäkuuta 2018

Finland -The happiest country


The idea for this blog text came from the first summer school lecture “Finland as a Welfare State”. A lot of people have asked us why Finland is the happiest country in the world. We wanted to write this text from the student’s point of view and focusing on combining studying and family life.
Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture has published results of the Eurostudent VI- survey. Results are to be used more efficiently at the national level as part of the key project of Prime Minister Sipilä’s Government on developing higher education. The EUROSTUDENT VI survey was conducted in Finland in spring 2016 using an online questionnaire sent to a sample of 24,000 higher education students. (Potila, Moisio, Ahti-Miettinen, Pyy-Martikainen, Virtanen, 2017, 7.) It says on the survey that the average age of Finnish university student is 26 -years old. (Potila ym. 2017, 24).
University studies in Finland last about five years, so basically it means that average Finnish student will be 31 years old when they graduate. If they work besides studies the time can be even longer than five years. Out of all the higher education students, including University of Applied Students every sixth person has one or more children. (Potila ym. 2017, 28). It means that it is really important that Finnish welfare system supports students with little children or studying while on parental leave.
In Finland when you get pregnant you are legitimate to have maternity leave and parental leave. Maternity leave starts about 5-8 weeks before the expected due date and lasts about four months. When your maternity leave starts you will begin to get maternity allowance from Kela which is a Finnish institution that literally means "People's Pension Institute. The parental leave starts right after maternity leave and lasts about six months. Parental leave can be shared between mother and father. During the parental leave, Kela pays parental allowance. (Kela, Our Services, Families, Parental allowances, 30.5.2018). Basically, it means that you child will be about 9-months old when your entitlement to the parental allowance ends. The amount of parental allowance is combined to earned incomes before maternity leave.

Does this mean you have to suspend your studies for 9 -months? Of course not! If the mother or father is a full-time student and receives financial aid for students, the parental allowance is paid on top financial aid for students. So, do you have to go to work or back to studies after nine months. No. The Finnish welfare system will provide you with child home care allowance, which basically means that KELA is paying you money to take care your child at home and you can get student allowance at the same time if you want to study. After maternity leave you have a choice to stay at home with child home care allowance until the child is 3 years old. Home care allowance ends when a child enters to municipality funded day care. The government also pays a child support monthly per child, from every child until they turn 17.
When parents of little, under school-aged children decides to go back to school or to work, municipalities have the obligation to provide a daycare place for children. We have a subjective right for children to have an early childhood education. Fees for day care are rated by household’s income. If family’s monthly incomes are less than 2000€, day care is for free. So basically, student’s children get day care for free if their mainly incomes are social benefits (and part-time jobs). Finnish day cares provide high educated staff and organized facilities to take care of children, 3 free and healthy meals per day for children and great support for studying parents if parents informal networks (the grandparents) lives far away, which is quite common in Finland, because students move to other places to study.
Government supports also students and families at housing costs. Housing allowance is for supporting the rental cost for low income households. Housing allowance is calculated based on incomes and how many people lives under a same roof. Students usually gets housing allowance and when they have children the allowance increases. Kela pays up to 80% of the rent when family’s income is low, such as in student-parents families.

And of course, we have the baby box that the Finnish student panel group mentioned. Baby box is a box that all the new mothers receive, containing all the necessary items that you might need with a new baby. At the end of this text we have couple of pictures about the baby box 2018, because one of us is having a baby this summer. And of course, you can choose if you want the box or would you rather take money instead.

 
By supporting family life, government is supporting especially women to achieve high education and combine children and student/ work life. Nevertheless, Poverty among families with children have increased especially in student-parent families. Student-, housing-, and child care allowances haven’t developed at the same pace that living costs in Finland. That creates pressure to go to work along studying and parenting, which can truly be described as traffic years. When you are given a choice to choose whatever you want to do in life, you end up doing it all, at the same time 😉 Mindfulness skills are truly required when you live your life at the fullest. Although, we want to emphasize that Finland is a good country from the university student’s point of view because we have good opportunities to combining family life and studies. And for us, that is one of the reasons why Finland is the happiest country in the world.
 
Suvi Lehojärvi & Tiia Vaarala, social work students/ International Summer School 2018