Browsing by Subject "http://www.yso.fi/onto/yso/p19600"

Insecurity of working life has created a certain manner of speaking which emphasizes indi-vidual’s role as an ideal subject who is preoccupied by continuously improving oneself. Over the last few years youth policy has laid stress on different kinds of guidance and support sys-tems. In the center of the discussion is the social exclusion of the youth and its prevention. Young people’s access to public services was recognized as a crucial problem and conse-quently the Finnish government set up Youth Guarantee. One-Stop Guidance Centers (Ohjaamo) were established around Finland to meet these needs. They bring together differ-ent services providing guidance for housing, education and employment. This research considers how challenges with youth employment and marginalization are han-dled in multi-agency guidance and counselling. The point of interest is how multi-agency counselling is legitimized in One-Stop Guidance Centers. I also ask how young people’s sub-jectivity and counselling specialists’ subject positions are constructed in One-Stop Guidance Centers. The research data consists of six theme interviews with counselling specialists working in a One-Stop Guidance Center. Analysis method was discoursive reading. It was found that multi-agency guidance offered by One-Stop Guidance Center is linked to therapisation and ethos of vulnerability where handling and governing emotions has become an important part of today’s society. Social problems such as unemployment are pinpointed to originate from individual’s qualities. Improving self-knowledge and other measures directed to individual’s psyche are offered as a cure to these social problems. In multi-agency guidance the central practices consisted of improving youth’s self-esteem and building motivation. By building better self-knowledge and finding one’s strengths youth were guided to use their freedom of choice but also governed their expectations. Counsellors’ position was constructed between ambivalent objectives: on the one hand as an ally but on the other hand as a bureaucrat exercising power.