Children aged between 10 and 14 showing signs of substance misuse were encountered ten times by street-level outreach workers in Helsinki last month, according to the Helsinki Deaconess Foundation.
The encounters were recorded by Katutaso (Street level in English), the Foundation’s youth substance abuse outreach programme. In total, outreach workers engaged 236 individuals with suspected substance use issues in October.
Ulla-Kaarina Petäjä, a researcher at the Deaconess Foundation, said the figures highlight an urgent need to strengthen early intervention services and preventive efforts.
“These children are seen to have challenges related to substance use and often require child protection or psychosocial support,” Petäjä said. “We’ve spoken with them and asked how they’re doing.”
Petäjä voiced concern over what she described as increasingly permissive attitudes toward substance use among young people. She referred to national school health survey data showing rising rates of underage vaping and cannabis experimentation.
“Cannabis remains the most commonly tried drug among youth, and attitudes toward it have softened,” she said.
Earlier this month, Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) announced it would begin offering opioid substitution treatment to minors. Petäjä welcomed the decision but warned that such measures should not become the first line of response.
“Intervention should happen long before treatment is needed,” she said. “There’s no single solution. Prevention, early response and care must work in unison.”
Petäjä stressed that services must be accessible across all regions and that collaboration between youth psychiatry, child welfare services and schools is essential. She also underlined the role of NGOs and civil society in offering psychosocial support.
“These organisations often create safe communities that help young people in recovery,” she said.
The Deaconess Foundation has observed that young people are willing to engage when approached respectfully and consistently. Petäjä said this contact can be a turning point for a young person using substances.
“The outreach worker becomes someone they trust, someone they can talk to about everyday life. They can also turn to that adult for support,” she said.
According to Petäjä, these initial conversations can help shift a young person’s path away from deeper exclusion, which may otherwise include normalisation of substance use, school dropout and involvement in crime.
Deaconess Foundation street workers accompany young people and offer long-term support. Their research team is studying the impact of this approach.
Since August, workers have documented 663 encounters with substance-using individuals under the age of 25 in Helsinki and Vantaa. The Foundation is conducting a multi-year study to assess how involvement in outreach affects youth health, wellbeing, motivation for treatment and sense of inclusion.
The research will continue until September 2027.
HT
