Support for vulnerable asylum seekers

The Joutseno and Oulu Reception Centres are further developing ways to help vulnerable asylum seekers, with the focus on unaccompanied women and their children.

With this in mind, they have launched an EU-funded project with the support of the Finnish Immigration Service. The project aims to develop good practices to be applied by all reception centres, regardless of their size or type, in providing assistance to the said target group.

Reception centres in Finland are already working on measures to improve the assistance provided to unaccompanied women and their children, but their tools and capacity to help vary from one centre to another.

Safety walk rounds at reception centres with focus on women are one way to help

Effective methods of assistance are now being gathered from reception centres. In addition, visiting experts provide support and advice.

An instructor from the Joutseno Reception Centre and a psychotherapist will start to improve working with clients at reception centres. The areas of development include identifying the real needs of the target group and the related methods of assistance.

• Safety walk rounds focusing on women will be conducted at reception centres. Conducting a safety walk round at a reception centre means going round the centre to check on the safety solutions, such as room location, lights, locks and emergency access roads. Safety walk rounds tend to reveal that only minor changes are needed to increase people’s sense of safety.
• Experts from different organisations, including MONIKA – Multicultural Women’s Association, the Federation of Mother and Child Homes and Shelters and the National Institute for Health and Welfare, will visit reception centres and take part in workshops.
• Training in the principles and methods of psychological first aid will be organised for reception centre personnel.
• Finnish experts will visit their colleagues in other countries. A group of social workers, for example, will go to exchange experiences and good practices with their colleagues in Sweden and Denmark.

The project runs until the end of 2017. It has been granted support from the European Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.

Further information for the media

Inkeri Mellanen, Project Manager, Joutseno Reception Centre, tel. +358 295 430 431, e-mail: heli.mellanen@intermin.fi

Olli Snellman, Head of Section, firstname.lastname@migri.fi, tel. 0295 430 431