Finland’s prenatal and child health clinics are a success story built upon the idea that preventive care is the best care. Thriving children are more likely to become thriving adolescents and, later, adults. When we support children during their growth period and help families take care of their children, we lay the foundations for well-being in the community.
Our public child health clinics are supplemented by student welfare services in schools and higher education, and by child protection services. We want child clinics to continue offering services beyond the age of six. Maternity care must be protected from further cuts, and there must be space in maternity wards for all those who need it. Support for families and parents with children generates a feeling of safety and prevents problems. Mental health care, particularly for young people, must be prioritized, and cooperation and information exchanges between municipal schools and the student welfare provided by the wellbeing services counties must be functional.
SFP wants:
- to save our maternity wards
- to ensure all women have the right to proper prenatal and postnatal care
- information to be provided on how to look after one’s health and avoid health risks even after pregnancy
- to see home care services offered to families needing extra support
- to increase access to child health clinics for children who have started school
- to develop teenager clinics as part of family health clinics
- to ensure student welfare services are available in schools and form a part of schools’ multidisciplinary teams
- to have more Swedish-speaking school psychologists and welfare officers being trained, and to make psychotherapy training free
- to ensure one psychiatric nurse, one school psychologist and one school social worker are provided per 500 students in every institution
- that all pupils and students are invited to see the school social worker at least once in primary school, once in lower secondary and once in upper secondary school, as well as according to need
- to ensure young people are offered low-threshold walk-in consultations close to where they find themselves
- to make contraceptives and contraceptive advice free for people under the age of 25
- to secure sufficient resources for developing and maintaining comprehensive support services for young people who suffer from or are at risk of mental illness
- to ensure young people with eating disorders are offered specifically tailored care services in both the national languages
- to ensure the wellbeing services counties actively work towards the whole population being vaccinated according to the national vaccination programme (including the HPV vaccine)
