Exhaustion | In Espoo, child protection drifted into a crisis

The worst during the week there were two people working in the team. All other employees of the child protection unit in Espoo were on sick leave, the root cause of which was exhaustion.

According to a recent survey by the trade union Talentia, half of the professionals in the social sector are considering a change of field. Often the reason is a feeling of inadequacy, a rush or the fact that at work you have to constantly act against your professional ethics.

Helsinki However, the employee who contacted Sanomat says that the group, who have experience in Espoo and are comfortable together, is burdened by a fairly recent detail: the transfer of work spaces to the new Family Center.

HS does not publish the name of the employee because he is afraid of being bored because of the interview.

Even more common than absenteeism at his workplace is that social workers try to persevere at work half fit, so that their own work does not fall on the neck of a colleague. It leads to even deeper exhaustion.

“If I’m sick, I first have to look at the calendar, because I might have time to stay on sick leave,” he describes.

He says that social work is always demanding and responsible work. The spiral of exhaustion is partially explained by the recent reforms.

Espoo the city’s first Family Center was opened in May. The basic idea of ​​family centers is that families with children benefit from the fact that different professionals, from counseling to child protection, are under the same roof and work closely together.

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When it comes to workspaces, open office is said to be the wrong word. However, it is about office spaces intended for hundreds of professionals in different services, where there are no designated places.

There are separate spaces that can be booked for meeting clients and handling various confidential matters, but of course you shouldn’t occupy them for a long time.

“From a social worker’s point of view, the problem is that almost all of our work requires the handling of confidential and sensitive information. It is often impossible to work in an open space,” the employee describes.

Many work remotely out of necessity. Then, when you need the support of a co-worker, the co-worker is not sitting nearby or even present. The load increases when you cannot, for example, naturally ask for advice or resolve difficult situations.

The employee also says that the management or the support received due to the workload has been non-existent on both sides of the social security reform.

“We have an experienced and skilled team and a very good spirit. But I wonder how long it will last like this.”

The welfare area of ​​Länsi-Uusimaa also somewhat conscientiously follows the measurements required by law regarding how many families one social worker can be responsible for. It doesn’t mean anything anymore if a lot of employees are absent or not really able to work at the workplace.

“It is clear that fires are put out there. You can’t talk about the kind of long-term work that families have a right to.”

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Service line manager Kati Villgren The welfare region of Western Uusimaa says that there has been a lot of feedback from different professionals about the work spaces of the family center.

“It has been a big change that we have given up our own rooms along the long corridors. We are practicing and learning the model now. The spaces are designed to be flexible in such a way that we can also change them to be more functional.”

Villgren also says that social security reform has required a lot of work from everyone. Now in March, however, the situation is good because the processes intended to support the exhausted employee are working efficiently again.

He considers the workload at work to be a serious matter, but the overall number of sickness absences in the sectors he leads, i.e. in child protection and family legal services, is not at an alarming level.

About social workers there is a nationwide shortage. For example, the pension insurer Keva recently calculated that, in relation to the size of the professional group, the labor shortage is currently the most difficult for social workers and psychologists.

In Western Uusimaa, and before that in Espoo and other municipalities in the region, this shortage can be seen from time to time.

However, Villgren says that right now the situation is exceptionally good in the Espoo area. There are bigger recruitment challenges in other parts of Western Uutta County.

“Employee turnover should be even lower in Espoo than it is now, and we also have a lot of part-time employees, while many are still studying. However, there are no longer huge vacancies to fill. We are therefore able to better support employees if they experience a load.”

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