Artikkelissa kysytään, miten viimesijainen turva tukee sen varassa elävien hyvinvointia. Hyvinvointi ymmärretään relationaalisena sekä loving, having, being ja doing -ulottuvuuksista koostuvana kokonaisuutena. Aineistona on käytetty ryhmähaastatteluja, joihin osallistui pitkäaikaisesti toimeentulotukea saaneita ja paljon sosiaalipalveluita käyttäneitä henkilöitä. Ryhmähaastattelut toteutettiin eri puolilla Suomea. Tuloksena esitetään, että viimesijaisessa turvassa ymmärrys hyvinvoinnista painottuu liiaksi materiaaliseen hyvinvointiin. Yhden ulottuvuuden voimakas painoarvo vie huomion muilta hyvinvoinnin ulottuvuuksilta ja siten se saattaa heikentää muita mahdollisia tapoja tukea hyvinvointia. Muiden ulottuvuuksien nykyistä parempi huomiointi ja relationaalinen hyvinvointikä-sitys viimesijaisessa turvassa voisi osaltaan tukea muutosta kohti kestävää hyvinvointia.

In this article, the Mirror method is studied as an approach to critical evaluation. The method offers a research approach to social work practice that is in line with the ideology, mission, and purposes of critical evaluation. The strengths of the approach include a dialogical process, an empowering effect, an understanding towards a client's situation as a whole, collective knowledge creation, and integration into daily social work. The potential of the Mirror method to facilitate critical thinking, enable changes towards equality, challenge oppression, and empower marginalized and silenced groups should be explored in the evaluation process.

Ever since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the specialized health-care resources have been the main focus of political attention in any country. However, the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have also had a major impact on social services. The pandemic increased service needs among those who were already adult social work clients before the pandemic; it also created needs among new groups of clients, while the operating environment for service provision changed dramatically. In our study, we examine social workers’ perceptions on: 1) how well social services were able to respond to clients’ needs during the pandemic; and 2) examine practices in adult social work that were used and developed during the outbreak of the pandemic. For the analysis, we use national survey data obtained from social workers in the Social Barometer survey collected in May 2020 (n=496) and in January 2021 (n=412). The findings show that according to social workers, during the first year of the pandemic social work in Finland succeeded in responding to clients’ rather clear and concrete problems, such as difficulties in applying for social benefits and a lack of housing, while more complicated problems, such as unmanageable debts, loneliness and mental health problems, were not adequately responded to. At the same time, social workers assessed that people suffering from these problems were the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Access to social work has become a matter of even higher significance as remote services and the digitalization of public services has increased extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using statistical data on red flag notifications in the Finnish social assistance system in 2017-2019 and survey data on social work professionals from 2021, we assess how well a red flag system identifies social assistance clients in need of municipal social work and how social clients access social services in a system where cash and care are separated.Our findings show that the red flag system primarily identified need for social work in case of financial problems while social and health problems were less often recognized. Thus, the system emphasizes clients' own knowledge and skills to receive the necessary services. According to our results, social workers are critical about benefit handlers' ability to recognize need for social work counselling and one fourth of them do no trust that clients in need of support are guided to social work. We argue that the digitalization has affected not only the way clients apply for benefits, but it has also created pressure for new kinds of social work such as outreaching social work, and direct contact with clients who are in danger of falling out of services.

No abstract