A Spanish Girl in Finland

In my last entry, I shared with you some information about Finnish Social and Health Care System. Maybe this is not as useful as the information about Finnish system, but now I want to share with you some information about the way of working of these systems in Spain. Maybe someone knows people living in Spain and need it! Social welfare and health care system Spain understands “health” by the same ecological and holistic perspective given by WHO, as Finland, so its main goal is to change and improve environmental conditions for people in risk of get diseases or have an unhealthy routine, to improve their life. The Ministry of Health, Consumption and Social Welfare is the responsible of Spain for proposing and executing the Government policy on health, planning and health care, consumption, cohesion and social inclusion, family, child protection and care for dependent or disabled people. It is the responsible also for exercising the powers of the General State Administratio

During my stay here I’m learning so many things. I have a subject where we study and learn about the health care system in Finland, and I want to share with you some basic information about it. I think it can be useful to know the way of working of social and health systems here! Social welfare and health care system Social welfare and health care system in Finland is basically based on municipal social welfare and health care services implemented with government support. Finland understands “health” as the definition of WHO, as an state that permits people to lead a socially, individually and economically productive life; so it is something more than not to have a disease, it is a resource which permit people have a normal daily life, and it includes physical habilities and social and personal resources. According to this ecological health perspective, the health of a person depends of its own (his behaviour, genetic…) and of the environment that surrounds him (good heal

“Safety and Security Walk” is a method of investigating different environments before think a plan to improve them. Nowadays, “safety” and “security” are considered two of the main human rights that must be assured. But, do we really know their meaning and the things they include? Safety is defined as the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk or injury. Further, security is defined as the state of being free from danger or threat. The governments have the obligation of assurance the security and the safety of their citizens, but some of them don´t have these rights. For these reasons, there are measures performed by associations and volunteers that want to improve the life of disadvantaged groups and suburbs. The “Safety and Security Walks” are structured methods that involve people in the local community in investigating both the physical and social environments. According to the main goals of the community work, it is based on change the en

“Advocacy” is other important area to know for people that are interested in social services. It is defined as “advancing government reforms and changed practice through citizen empowerment and mobilisation” or according to a World Vision, “advocacy is the promotion of justice through changes in policies, systems, structures, practices and attitudes, citizen mobilization and education about human and child rights”. What does it mean? It means that according to this point of view, to help people is necessary to give them voice, to teach them their rights and to help them to organize themselves according to an objective. Citizens are active people that may act to change their situation (as community work), so if volunteers and social workers help them by teaching them their rights and giving them strategies to improve their skills, they can change the policy and their situation. Its main idea is that social workers must give voice to disadvantaged groups, and must teach them how th

As you already know because of my last entry, the “community work” is a way of working focussed in the environment and the context of the people, because its main idea is that a person have a problem because It is not adapted correctly to the context, and we can’t understand the behaviour of a person without their circumstances. So, as in other countries, in Spain, community work has the goal to work with the environment of a target group, to screen what is the problem, what things can change and how, and to let the people that live in this environment to act and to take part in this change. People can’t be passive patients; they have to work in their own change, so they have to learn the specific skills and knowledge to participate in their own change. In that way, the environment improves and the people that live in it can improve and grow up too. So, the main idea is to screen the problem in the environment, change it and teach citizens how to participate in this change. C

In the next entries, I’ll share with you some interesting things that I’ve learnt in my lessons of Social Services in TUAS. This entry is aimed to speak about Community Work, a very useful and important topic to understand if you are interested in projects and activities related with social services. Community Work is a way to practice social services whose main goal is to improve individual condition through improving community conditions. Community Work is according with the idea that the behaviour and the situation of a person depends not only of his biology, genetic and personality; it depends specially of his environment and community. So, Community Work is focussed in working with communities to improve their situation. How do they get it? The first step is to screen the main problem of the community. Then, the important thing is to think about how we can solve this problem, what does the community need; and then, give the people of the community tools to change their e