Health and welfare promotion in Helsinki

Welfare, health and safety promotion is preventive work that supports all Helsinki residents’ opportunities for welfare, health, inclusion, equality, safe everyday life and good working and functional capacity. These opportunities are created by providing conditions that support welfare and healthy choices, and by strengthening agency, optimism and faith in the future.

In its broadest sense, health and welfare promotion work is an activity carried out in services provided by different City divisions and the City Executive Office, as well as in cross-administrative cooperation, targeting individuals, families, communities and the population at large as well as their living environments. The work is carried out in cooperation with organisations, the Youth Council, the Elderly Citizens Council, the Council on Disability, the Helsinki Advisory Board for Organisations, the HUS Group, the welfare services counties of Uusimaa, the residents of Helsinki and other partners. The overarching aim of health and welfare promotion work is to reduce inequalities in welfare and health.

The City of Helsinki Welfare Plan plays an important role in promoting sustainable development, especially with regard to the following UN goals: good health and wellbeing (SDG 3), reduced inequalities (SDG 10) and sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11). The objectives and measures of the Welfare Plan will contribute in particular to social sustainability, with social justice and inclusion at its core. In a socially sustainable city, the intergenerational transmission of disadvantages is prevented and inequality is reduced through means such as diverse services.

According to reformed legislation, municipalities must promote the welfare and health of their residents and set objectives for the promotion of welfare and health in their strategic planning and define measures to support these objectives. Municipalities must monitor the living conditions, welfare and health of their residents and the factors affecting them by region and population group. Municipalities must report annually to the county council on the welfare and health of their residents, the factors affecting them and the measures taken. In addition to this, municipalities must prepare a welfare plan and a welfare report on the above-mentioned issues for the county council every council term. In Helsinki, these tasks are carried out in cooperation between Municipal Helsinki and the Helsinki Social Services, Health Care and Rescue Services Division in joint management structures.

The primary responsibility for the promotion of welfare, health and safety lies with Municipal Helsinki (the Culture and Leisure Division, the Education Division, the Urban Environment Division and the City Executive Office). Welfare, health and safety are promoted in active cooperation with the Social Services, Health Care and Rescue Services Division.

The City’s operative management group is responsible for the cross-administrative management, policy-making and monitoring of the promotion of welfare, health and safety and acts as the responsible body in accordance with section 6 of the Act on Organising Healthcare and Social Welfare Services.

To promote equity for all age groups, the City has set up three strategic lifecycle working groups: the health and welfare promotion working group for children, young people and families with children; the health and welfare promotion working group for working-age people and the health and welfare promotion working group for older people. The core task of the working groups is to manage, monitor and implement cross-administrative preventive work at each lifecycle stage, taking into account the priorities set for each council period of office.

The welfare services counties of Uusimaa and the City of Helsinki are responsible for the coordination of welfare, health and safety at the Uusimaa level in close cooperation with the HUS Group. The Social Services, Health Care and Rescue Services Division is the main responsible operator of the City of Helsinki in the HYTE cooperation with the HUS Group.
The Strategy Department of the City Executive Office is responsible for coordinating the cross-administrative work on health and welfare promotion in cooperation with all divisions.

The Culture and Leisure Division is responsible for a number of city-wide tasks such as the coordination of substance abuse prevention and domestic violence work, the implementation of health and welfare promotion negotiations, the coordination of prevention of home and leisure accidents and the coordination of the Child-Friendly Municipality work.