Verke is the National Development Centre for Online Youth Work in Finland, established in 2010 by the Ministry of Education and Culture to develop youth work performed online and using the internet. According to the document, youth work in Finland is carried out by municipalities, organizations, and churches, and focuses on educational guidance, facilities, information/counseling, and cultural/international activities for young people under 29, which makes up 34% of Finland's population. The document advocates for recognizing digital culture and adopting online tools like social media and games into youth work to better engage today's digital generation of young people.

1. USING ICT, DIGITAL
!
Marcus Lundqvist
AND SOCIAL
MEDIA
IN YOUTH WORK
16.10.2014

2. Youth Work in
Finland

3. YOUTH WORK
Carried out by municipalities, different organisations and the church.
Municipalities play an important role in the implementation of youth
work. The municipalities have, altogether, over a thousand youth
centres.

4. BASICS
Young people under 29 years of age constitute 34% of the population
of Finland. The role of the Government is to create a favourable
environment for the youth work.

5. BASICS
According to the Youth Act, local youth work and youth policy
comprises the following:
• educational guidance of young people
• facilities and hobby opportunities
• information and counselling services
• support to youth associations and other youth groups
• sportive, cultural, international and multicultural youth activities
• young people's environmental education
• youth workshop services or other forms of activity suited to the
local circumstances and needs.

6. WHO ARE WE?

7. VERKE
Verke, the National Development Centre for Online Youth Work, is one
of the national service and development centres for youth work
appointed in August 2010 by the Ministry of Education and Culture. Its
assignment is to develop the youth work performed online and using
the Internet, and to offer services to professionals working with young
people around Finland.
Verke, the National Development Centre for
Online Youth Work, is one of the national service
and development centres for youth work
appointed in August 2010 by the Ministry of
Education and Culture. Its assignment is to
develop the youth work performed online and
using the Internet, and to offer services to
professionals working with young people around
Finland.

8. MUCH MUCH EARLIER
Year 2003 First Youth Work service
in commercial online-environment
Year 2005 Netari was founded
Year 2007 Multi-professional work
Year 2010 180 000 young people
visited online services
Year 2011 Verke was founded

9. DIGITAL CULTURE
In order to recognise, acknowledge and support the individuality,
uniqueness and genuity of a young person, youth work has to
recognise digital culture as one of the central sources of cultural and
social capital of a growing young person.
At the same time, youth work professionals must adopt and learn the
information and skills required to encounter the youth through digital
media.

10. STATISTICS

11. 100
75
50
25
0
80%
Prevalence of Internet usage and certain
87%
76%
100%
Used the
Internet in the
past 3 months
Uses the
Internet usually
several times a
day
Followed some
social network
service in the
past 3 months
Has a
smartphone in
own use
purposes of use in 2013
Ages from 16 to 24

12. Youth Workers

13. Culture of fear and other
challenges

14. STEPS TAKEN IN FINLAND
Digital gaming
Culture of fear
Online youth work was mentioned in Youth policy
development programme 2007-2011
Multi-professional cooperation
Working in commercial platforms
It is not genuine interaction

15. THE FINNISH GOVERNMENT’S CHILD
AND YOUTH POLICY PROGRAMME
2007-2011
6 Digital generation
6.2 Safe media environment
6.3 Media literate children and young people
6.4 Children and young people as content producers
6.5 Youth work on the Internet
6.6 Internet student house
6.7 Healthy computer use

16. THE FINNISH GOVERNMENT’S CHILD
AND YOUTH POLICY PROGRAMME
2012-2015
Measure 1.4: Media skills and participation in the information society.
Youth work appropriations will be allocated to municipalities to establish and
equip youth media centres and to launch media education projects.
Online youth work and other online applications will be supported to facilitate
children’s and young people’s growth, hobbies and opportunities to have an
influence
!
Measure 9.2: The competence of people working with children and
young people.
In addition, abilities required for the changing operating environment must be
brought up to date. Such abilities are related to information technology, for
example.

17. FUNDING
for online youth work
Ministry of Education and Culture 1 000 000€ / year
Regional State Administrative Agencies
Slot Machine Association
xx € / year
xx € / year

18. Where are we going?

19. DEVELOPMENT
CHAT Discussion
boards
Video
chat
Virtual
worlds
Facebook
Digital
Games
Own
Applications
Maker
culture

20. DON’T LET THE FEAR
STOP YOU

21. JUST DO IT AND
DO IT TOGETHER

22. QUESTIONS?
www.verke.org
marcus.lundqvist@verke.org
@arcius