Authors

• Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences

Keywords

adolescents, health services, local community facilities, neighbourhoods, place of residence, public services, social services, youth, youth clubs, youth organizations

Abstract

The Youth Barometers of Eastern Finland chart the welfare, values and attitudes of adolescents in Eastern Finland. The survey for years 2014-2015 focused on the services provided by the cities and municipalities, and whether the adolescents use these services in their home municipality. The survey was divided into five sets of questions, including public sector services provided by the municipality, public office services, club and organizations services, church services and commercial services.

The respondents were asked how often they used certain services and how available these services were in their home municipality. In the first part, the respondents were asked about the services provided by the public sector. The services listed included, among others, public healthcare, public dental care, social services, youth clubs, and library services. The second part focused on public office services. These included, for instance, employment services, police services, services regarding military service, and services of Kela, such as health- and social care and student allowance services.

In the third part, the respondents were asked about club and organization services, such as sports services, cultural services, workshops, events, and political activities. In the fourth part, the respondents were asked about services provided by the churches and congregations. These included camps, spiritual activities, voluntary work, activities related to confirmation schools, and activities related to church holidays.

In the fifth part, the respondents were asked about the commercial services in their municipality. These included among other things: public transportation, private health and dental care, grocery stores, and private cultural services.

The respondents were also asked to list services they would like to use which were not available in their municipality. They were also asked about ways to improve the services in their home municipality and their opinions on how much the youth could influence these services. Finally the respondents were asked how their own municipality would compare to other municipalities in terms of these services.

The background variables were the respondent's gender, age, municipality type, education, household composition, and the level of education of both the respondent's father and mother.