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Finland Welfare Services
In addition to the above measures that involved
financial
payments to achieve social ends, the system of social care
provided welfare services. By the mid-1980s, some 90,000
state
and local employees were using about 5 percent of
Finland's gross
national product
(GNP--see Glossary)
to deliver a wide
variety of
social services under the overall direction of the
Ministry of
Social Affairs and Health. The expansion of the welfare
system in
the 1960s and the 1970s had caused the number of social
workers
roughly to triple between 1970 and 1985. Since 1981
workers
entering the field had been required to have university
training.
National government subsidies of from 30 to 60 percent
of
costs had the goal of making social services uniform
throughout
the country, so that residents of even the most isolated
community had the same range of services as were offered
in
Helsinki, though this aim was not always met. Social
services
were usually free, and they were available to anyone who
wanted
them, irrespective of the recipient's income. Information
furnished to social workers was confidential and could not
be
released, even to another government agency. The ultimate
aim of
welfare services was to increase the quality of life and
the
independence of the client so that welfare services were
no
longer needed.
The Social Welfare Act of 1982 replaced some older
laws; it
charged local government with providing such social
services as
general and family counseling and with making housing
available
to those needing it, most notably the aged and the infirm,
troubled youth, and alcoholics. The law detailed local
responsibilities for assigning specialists to assist
persons
living at home but no longer fully able to take care of
themselves and for maintaining institutions for persons,
be they
aged, mentally handicapped, or addicted, whose afflictions
were
so serious that they could no longer live at home.
Data as of December 1988
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