Motivating young people 

This article has originally been published in the Espoo Magazine 3/2022.

Read other articles in the Espoo Magazine 3/2022

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Jaana Grönfors is a personal coach with Espoo’s Employment Services. Motivating young people is an important part of her job. 

I  became a personal coach through a municipal employment trial in March last year. I previously worked in multisectoral services for the long-term unemployed. In my current job, I help young people with employment and training matters. My clients are under 30 years old. I encounter many different stories in the course of my working day. It is very interesting. 

The new service model was launched at the beginning of May. It involved learning and adopting a lot of new things. For clients, the major change was the obligation to seek employment. Clients must apply for four job opportunities each month. I have discovered that trying to find employment involves some quite abstract issues that can be confusing, particularly for young people. It is good that in this new service model we have meetings with a new client every two weeks for the first three months.  

It is great if I can help a young person take a step forward. What I find the most challenging is getting a client onto the care pathway. Some clients discontinue their studies and find it difficult to manage their affairs because of mental health problems or difficulties in concentrating. Cases like this make me wish that there were more ‘hands-on’ support services available for young people.  

The best thing about my job is working and engaging with clients. But it’s not all about meetings, as these generate a whole range of other tasks, such as booking training courses and referring clients to a variety of services. Networking is really important in this job. Everyone involved contributes to leading the client forward towards finding employment.” 

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