Kela
I visited I Kela’s website. Kela means the Social Insurance Institution of Finland. It takes care of the social security of people living in Finland. Kela is responsible, for example, for family benefits, student financial aid and unemployment security. Kela’s website is familiar to me. I have two child so I have recieved for example parental allowance and home care allowance from Kela. I ordered a European Health Insurance Card from Kela’s website. The European Health Insurance Card was new to me. I believe that ordering a card is useful.
OmaKanta
OmaKanta is an online service intended for Finnish citizens. There you can find information recorded by social welfare and health care. In OmaKanta -page you can find your own prescriptions, research results and health care records. I think OmaKanta is a useful site. You can find quickly and easily the information you need. I have used OmaKanta-site to booking an appontments and checking the results of laboratory tests.
Keva
Keva is a Finnish pension provider. Keva takes care of pension matters for employees in the public sector, the state, the church and Kela. Keva’s website is quite new to me. I went to see my expected retirement age. I also found my current pension. I hope I will be able to work for a long time.
Mielenterveystalo.fi
I was looking for information about the self-care programme for children’s sleeping problems. The program was found on the website of the Mental Health Centre (Mielenterveystalo). The program contains basic information about the child’s sleep and tools for improving sleep. The website also guides you to seek help if the site’s tips or your own methods do not seem to be help enough.
I think this self-care programme -site is easy to use. No login is required to use the site. I think that the advantage of online services is that they can be used at any time of the day. They can also be used on any day of the week. I believe that I will use the site in my own work.
Kasvun tuki
I have get to know this site from my Early support specialist (YAMK) -studies. From this website you can find up-to-date information about working methods in the social sector. The website has been specially compiled with early support working tools. I have found a lot of important information from the side. The website presents the children-to-talk method, pro-school and ipcd-method, cool kids -methods etc. The development of early support is only in its early stages. It is important that information about early support is gathered on one page. From there the professionals can easily find the information they need.
Digitalisation and digital gaps
The digital gap or digital divide means the division of people: those who use varied digital services, apps or data and those who do not. Digital skills are very different between young and elderly people. In addition to age, there may be many other reasons why it may be difficult to use digital tools or services. Therefore it is important that services can be obtained in many different ways: face-to-face, phone, website, chat, etc. In social services, e-services are still being developed. I believe that digital services will be revolutionised in the next ten years.
Digital Competence and self reflection
It was interesting to make the Digital Skills Test. My strengths were communication skills: social awareness, activity, co-operation and choosing the right media for the purpose. I can also search for information. I like to use digital self-services. I need more practice in configuration. Solving technical problems is difficult for me. I also need to learn more about automation as a whole.
I would say that I use digital tools and services when they are easy and quick to use. I don’t have the patience to solve technical puzzles. I am interested in the use of digital tools as a tool for interaction. I also think that digitalization offers opportunities to reach support and help at an early stage. I think digital skills are essential in working life. It is important to practice them and learn to understand them. Can people be genuinely active participants in society or in working life in the future if they do not have adequate digital skills? How can professionals strengthen their customers’ digital skills so that everyone could participate fully in our society?
As a young student I worked in an logistics industry office where I had possibility to use an old fashioned digital tools. I used them to communicate with my clients. I would like to learn more about to days and the futures digital opportunities in the social sector. I think that this course was useful. It was necessary to become familiar with digital tools and the possibilities of technology. Digital tools developes fastly. It is important to learn to understand the new opportunities and challenges that they brings. It would be interesting to try to use for example the chat servises in the early support services on sosial sector. I think that citizens needs several different channels and options for taking contact in social servises. After this course I became interested to find more information about the development of digital services.
I commented these interesting sites:
DIGI CITIZEN – Helmi`s site (savonia.fi)
DIGI CITIZEN – Jaana Paavola (savonia.fi)
It is great to see that you see the both sides of the digitalization! It is good to read about positive experiences of digital services and see that still the digital gap especially concerning the elderly can fit in the same reality.
Your questions are great and I think the posting in general reflects healthy concern. I recognize the challenges in work life, such as IT issues being “outsourced” to other professionals. I wonder if it is really saving anything when a professional of their own field struggles with topics that take time from their actual work. I am a strong believer in lifelong learning, and try to keep up to do my own job as well as possible, but what I really miss from the past are the talents and their positions in receptions, secretaries, local IT support and so on. Digitalization has not taken their work away, it is just done in digital platforms, by others and often without enough support.
https://fearless-uasspringdwe2024.wordpress.com/
Mielenterveystalo.fi and Kasvuntuki websites seemed very interesting and are definitely worth exploring in the future. I agree with you that the good thing about online services is that they are available anytime. However, with various online services, it is important to ensure that the service provider is trustworthy because the internet is also full of all kinds of nonsense.
It is indeed good to note that services will continue to be available through multiple channels so that people with different skills and needs can access them. We are often concerned about the digital skills of older people. Your writing reminded me that perhaps we should also pay more attention to the digital skills of younger people, as they too can face significant challenges. Digital services have developed at an incredible pace in recent years, and it is truly interesting to see how they will evolve in the coming years.