The Child Friendly Cities Initiative
Helsinki is a city for children, and we are continuing the work of the UNICEF Child-Friendly Cities Initiative. We want Helsinki to be a child-friendly city where every child and young person has the right to grow and develop safely. Helsinki is committed to promoting equality, equity and human rights in all its activities. We will strengthen inclusiveness and interactivity in all aspects of City operations.
Child-Friendly City work is based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and promotes the realisation of children’s rights in the city. Every child is precious, and the rights of the child belong to all children.
Helsinki has been part of the Child-Friendly Cities Initiative since 2021. In September 2024, UNICEF Finland awarded the first Child-Friendly City award to Helsinki, making Helsinki the first Nordic capital to be awarded this distinction. The City of Helsinki will continue its work according to the Child-Friendly Cities Initiative in 2025–2028, as well.
The Rights of the Child as the starting point
Cities are responsible for many things that are important for children and young people. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights treaty that applies to everyone under the age of 18. UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities Initiative promotes the implementation of the Rights of the Child and implements Finland’s National Child Strategy in municipalities.
In the Child-friendly Cities Initiative, cities
- identify areas of children’s rights where they have room for improvement;
- define what they should do to ensure that children’s rights are fully respected; and
- systematically monitor progress towards the set objectives.
The main successes so far in our Child-Friendly City work:
- The Child-Friendly City work has had a structural impact: for example, the architectural programme includes a policy to promote child-centred design, and compliance with children’s rights has been added to the Culture and Leisure Division’s grant principles.
- During the period, the City has actively promoted involvement among children and young people and arranged for active dialogue with children and young people, such as evenings with deputy mayors.
- A training package on the rights of the child has been launched and can now be found in our training calendar. An increasing number of people have completed the training. An information package and training has also been produced for elected officials.
- The child impact assessment model has been completed. Implementation will be supported through training and peer-learning events.
- The ‘Muistinko lapset ja nuoret’ (Did I consider the children and young people?) planning tool to increase the inclusion of children and young people has been completed. A follow-up plan for collecting feedback from children has been developed based on the pilots carried out and all the information on the feedback collection has been compiled together.
- Emotional and social skills are taught at every comprehensive school. Training has been provided to support teachers’ capacity to teach these skills. A common approach to preventing and intervening in bullying, harassment and violence has been created for the Education Division. Training in anti-bullying activities for those involved in recreational activities has also been provided. Furthermore, training on the rights of the child has been provided to those organising recreational activities.
- Different ways of interacting with children and young people have been piloted to enhance the feeling of safety among children and young people. The work is linked to ongoing and emerging projects. This set of objectives yielded, among other things, the starting points for the work based on the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. Several placemaking experiments are underway in suburban regeneration areas to improve the safety and comfort of urban space. They have been carried out together with children and young people based on the urban space survey on children and young people (Lasten ja nuorten kaupunkitilatutkimus, 2023).
- Communications have been used to promote the work and keep the rights of the child in the spotlight through a series of news articles, social media posts, quarterly communications in line with the National Child Strategy and materials for Children’s Rights Week.
- This work is a good example of the effectiveness of city-wide efforts on health and welfare promotion.
Child-Friendly City objectives for 2025–2028
- We will include children’s rights in the training of professionals.
- We will improve knowledge of children’s rights by promoting the completion of eOppiva courses. The target is for supervisors and 20% of staff to complete the training. We will address the theme of the rights of the child in different contexts.
- We will familiarise elected officials with the rights of the child and Child-Friendly City work.
- We will strengthen stakeholders’ knowledge of children’s rights through events, training and partnership letters.
- We will improve the child impact assessment model we have developed.
- We will incorporate the child impact assessment (LAVA) model into the work instructions and processes of decision-making in City divisions and carry out the assessment when the matter under consideration has a significant impact on children’s wellbeing or affects children on a large scale.
- We will train staff in the use of the LAVA model.
- We will collect and monitor data on the child impact assessments carried out.
- We will strengthen professionals’ knowledge of the phenomenon of domestic violence against children and its prevention.
- We will update and implement a service chain for the prevention of domestic violence experienced by children.
- We will raise awareness among professionals about the low-threshold services offered by the third sector, especially in the field of domestic violence, and the role of organisations.
- We will engage in closer cooperation with organisations.
- We will set up a network for children and young people within the Urban Environment Division.
- We will clarify the structures, methods and ways of documenting children’s participation in the Urban Environment Division.
- We will set up an urban planning laboratory in the Urban Environment Division to support child participation and child impact assessment.
- We will continue to work with children and young people on placemaking activities to make urban space more enjoyable.
- We will establish the use of the situational picture concerning regional security of children and young people in regional collaboration groups.
- We will strengthen the culture of community, where everyone feels valued and significant as part of the learning community, in general upper secondary education.
- We will strengthen the use of a feedback-based working model in social welfare services for families with children and in school social worker and psychological services in student welfare for upper secondary school students.
- We will monitor young people’s experiences of safety at regional level through an experiential knowledge survey. Emerging themes will be addressed in regional workshops for young people.
- We will implement a project on bullying and violence prevention and intervention in basic education between 2025 and 2027.
- We will introduce action cards to support adults in addressing bullying, harassment and violence. The practices adopted by adults will be evaluated with young people.
- We will extend our prefect activities to comprehensive schools with grades 1–6.
- We will promote and monitor the inclusion of vulnerable children and young people and ensuring their voice is heard.
Organisation of the Child Friendly Cities work in Helsinki
The Child-Friendly Initiative coordination group convenes approximately four times a year.
Chair of the coordination group:
Maarit Sulavuori
Department director
maarit.sulavuori@hel.fi
UNICEF coordinators:
City Executive Office
Stina Högnabba
Special Planner
Tel. +358 9 310 42525
stina.hognabba@hel.fi
Culture and Leisure Division
Pirjo Mattila
Development Specialist
Tel. +358 9 310 89122
pirjo.mattila@hel.fi
Education Division
Elina Rautiainen
Pedagogical specialist
Tel. +358 9 310 22148
elina.rautiainen@hel.fi
Social Services, Health Care and Rescue Services Division
Mia Mäntymaa
Development consultant
Tel. +358 9 310 72924
mia.mantymaa@hel.fi
Urban Environment Division
Taika Tuunanen
Head of unit
Tel. +358 9 310 73872
taika.tuunanen@hel.fi