National multiprofessional online youthwork

Internet usage in Finland

Frequency of use

And what the future holds?

Brief History of Netari.fi

Started as a project in 2004

Project involved 4 capitol area cities

Main goals were to find out how to make contact to teens online and how to imply youthwork methods to online enviroments

Project ended in fall 2007

Netari.fi was included to governments Development Programme for Child And Youth Policy

Since 2008 work has evolved to nationwide, multiprofessional online youth work.

Present organisation of online youth work

26 municipalities involved

78 youth workers around Finland

11 person team coordinating and developing

Supported by Ministry of Education and Culture and Ministry of Social Affairs and Health

Aims

To carry out and develop national youth work performed online.

To make contact with that section of youth who spend a large part of their time in various Internet environments and is not necessarily in contact with already existing youth work.

Principles and methods

Operates in already popular social network sites, mainly.

Tehnical solutions mainly from service providers, youth work adaptation from Netari.fi

Quick contact to large amount of teenagers in Finland in main target group (13-18 years old)

Principle to be available, not squeezing in

Stability of contact, regularity and trustworthiness very important

Work is mainly done within opening hours, 12 opening hours per week

Online youth work includes discussions, events, games, quizzes, themed evenings etc.

Depending on environment there is 4 to 10 workers online at the same time from different cities. They are connected via VoIP-connection. Collective work method.

Peer tutors are trained by youth workers, tutors work alongside as volunteer with youth workers. They chat online, organise meets and camps.

Netari working environments - Habbo

Netari working environments - Habbo

Habbo is based in 2000, localized versions in 32 countries

13 000 000 unique visitors per month world wide, Finland and UK most active countries.

Basically 2D-avatar chat with most of web 2.0 tools such as IM, tagging, groups, games, user generated content, sharing and modding of it etc.

Average age of visitors is approx. 12 years, in Netari-room 13 years

Activities in Habbo-hotel include games, building and decorating your own room(s), trading furnitures, masquarades,

Netari has own room and in that space youth worker is available during opening hours.

Netari working environments – IRC-Gallery

IRC-Gallery was established in 2001 by users of Internet Relay Chat aka IRC

App. 500 000 users

Average age of users is 20,64 years, Netari focuses on teens from 15 to 18 years of age

Basic SNS-structure, Profile, friends, communication, photogallery, commenting and diary etc.

Netari working environments – Netari-tv

Netari-tv started as cooperation pilot between Netari.fi and Finland's national public service broadcasting company YLE

Netari-tv combines elements of web-tv, chatting and interactivity between watchers, chatters, host and visitors of the show

Aims of Netari-tv is to provide low threshold possibilities to participate to netari-tv´s broadcasts in many ways

Netari working environments – Demi.fi

Targeted to teenage girls

50 000 weekly users

Netari will start working in Demi autumn 2010

Youthworkers and nurses hosts theme discussions weekly

Gallups, polls, etc

Netari working environments – NetariVille

Will start autumn 2010

Competitions, polls, quiz, activities

Chat two times a week; youthworkers, nurses, social workers

Is in developement

User have ability to share their photos, videos, etc.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday

Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

IRC-Gallery

18:00-21:00

18:00-21:00

19:00-22:00

19:00-22:00

Habbo Hotel

17:00-20:30

17:00-20:30

17:00-20:30

17:00-20:30

Netari-TV 18:00-19:00

Facebook 18:00-21:00

18:00-21:00

Demi.fi 17:30-21:00

Netari is open weekly 36,5 hours in total

Opening hours

Multiprofessional Netari organisation: 1. Health Centre of City of Helsinki

-3 professional webnurses 2. Social services department of City of Helsinki

-1 Project planner, 1 social worker, 1 psychiatric nurse

3. Youth crime unit of Police department of city of Oulu - police officer working every Friday evening online

Aims for multi-professional work

Through multi-professional cooperation, the project aims to lower the threshold for those youths using the facility to seek social and health services when necessary.

The plan is to also bring multi-professional services, through the Netari operation, straight to the Internet environments popular among young people.

Other use of social media – Facebook Fanpage

Other use of social media – Twitter

Other use of social media – Delicious

Netari-visitors

Netari-discussion topics

Main discussion topics are within few main categories:

1. Family/Home- Relationships within family, with parents, siblings, relatives- Problems with communication, substance abuse, domestic abuse- Separation from home

2. School/Studies/Education- study motivation, school success, education orientation, future plans- communication with fellow students, teachers- bullying, problems with classmates etc.

3. Leisuretime- Hobbies, music, sports, culture, - Substance experiments/use- “I’ve got nothing to do”, motivation to pick up and carry some activities - Health (mental/physical), depression, anxiety

Topics and points of view vary on age of participants and therefore between environments

Requirements for workers

• Embracing of the new working environmentPerceiving internet as a structure, space, rules, cultures, ethics and norms- Some has fluent internet skills, some start to practise- Differences of techniques

• Differences in communication- Comparing to traditional communication and discussion:- What is missing, something compensatory, pros and cons- Intensity and distance

• Considering the physical work surroundings- Different organisation cultures and attitudes towards internet and online youth work - Ergonomics- Work safety issues

Development

Training and education- National online youth work training twice a year- Topic-trainings via VoIP-connection- Seminars and conferences- Co-operation with main applied sciences universities

Publications- blog on The Finnish Youth Research Society's page- online youth work manuals – link- study book will be published in spring 2011

Research- Two user group surveys per year- Workers fill a surveys after every working hour and private conversation- Involved with The Finnish Youth Research Society's research

Internet, social media and youth work

Internet can be considered as a space where youth work should be present

Social media provides large variety of tools to use in that space

Work can be done with already existing contacts or to gather new contacts for example in spesific suburb or district-> extension of local youth house/club

Besides using internet an social media to extend local youth work there should be resources to work in those spaces that are not depended on ties to physical surroundings -> working in online space

These spaces requires their own resources and should be considered as new “city” or “suburb” where youth worker should be available

You can find this presentation at:

www.slideshare.net/netariwww.slideshare.net/netari