Finland issues new guidelines for monitoring young adults

Finland will combat the issue of under 25 year-olds becoming socially alienated through new guidelines for supervision issued to local authorities.

The new legislation aims to provide young adults with more effective monitoring to prevent those youths becoming outcasts in society and offer them career guidance.

YLE reports that the change in laws is essentially targeting secondary school-leavers who have not continued with further education or been able to find suitable employment. Director for the Child, Youth and Family Policy programme Georg Henrik Wrede called the proposal significant in that it will offer crucial late intervention to prevent alienation of estranged young adults.

“Some young people become lost after basic education. They drop out of continuation studies, find a job for awhile but then give up. The question is how to help them move on in life,” Wrede said, adding that often the target audience is unaware of the help available. The new laws would see local authorities required to properly identify and direct any enquiries from young Finnish adults and place more onus on specialised departments to provide appropriate assistance.

Critics of the proposal, including the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities’ Kari Sjoholm, argue that law changes would create more rigid and bureaucratic administrations which claim to already engage in sufficient and varied activities to assist young people.

The Ministry of Education proposal will be considered by the Finnish parliament in March after it is reviewed by Stefan Wallin, Minister for youth affairs. The scheme follows tragic shootings by youths in Kauhajoki and Jokela.