Developing and nationally establishing the model of digital hospital youth work

Youth work belongs to everyone!

In our nationwide digital hospital youth work project, we provide professional youth work on the Discord platform for children and young people with physical long-term illnesses.

Our activities are guided by professionally trained youth workers, and the service is open to all children and young people aged 13–17 who are clients of Finland’s university hospitals.

Humak has a cooperation agreement with the university hospitals for organizing the activities. Our project’s main cooperation partner is Kympin lapset ry. We also have several patient organizations and municipal youth services as our partners.

Humak has a strong expertise in youth work and youth-specific encounters, as well as an extensive cooperation network to support the project. Our aim is to provide young people in vulnerable life situations with a safe and professional place for interaction online.

The core objectives of our project are

1. Supporting the growth, development, inclusion, and social and psychological well-being of young people in hospital and outpatient care. These objectives are achieved by organizing regular online activities on a Discord server tailored to the needs of the target group, while taking into account the young people’s current energy levels and capacity. The online activities also test new forms of online and hybrid youth work.

2. Further development and nationwide scaling of digital hospital youth work as a working model.
We have expanded our activities nationwide, and our marketing has been targeted especially at university hospitals.

3. Piloting a training package on a sensitive guidance approach targeted at youth professionals. The pilot will begin in spring 2026.