ABOUT THE EPISODE:  In Finland they do a lot of inspiring things in the field of youth work. One of that is the Crisi Chat at Sekasin Chat, we already covered in previous episodes. At Sekasin Collective they do other very interesting things too. They operate Discord-based Sekasin Gaming, which is Finland's largest professionally moderated online youth space and community on Discord. The service is targeted especially for those young people, who are hard to reach by traditional means, marginalised or at risk of marginalisation. 

We talked with Joosua Valkeakunnas, who told us about the work they do in this online youth club.  He shared what they do on the servers, and how can we picture their service.

I believe this world Joosua opens up in this episode is quite new for a lot of people, and lot of professionals working with youth, and at the same time, it is very thought provoking and inspiring. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST:  Joosua Valkeakunnas is a youth worker and the founder of Sekasin Gaming / Mental Gaming.

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00:00 - Introduction to the episode

3:00 - An online ‘youthclub’ - Mental Gaming

6:00 - Who are the gamers? Members of Mental Gaming community

11:00 - Why do the gamers join? About the risks and needs of members

15:00 -  How did they start a mental health support on a gamer chat platform? 

19:30 - How do they work with mental health? 

22:30 - What do they do with trolling? 

25:00 - What do they do with opinions they don’t like? 

27:30 - How do they cover the moderation? 

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 In the third part of our conversation Pedram told more about the bullying experiment: how did it evolve? He also spoke about how the videos are made, and what he sees as the impact of recording volunteering projects and showing them to world. 

We talked a bit about the theoretical and value base of GutsyGo and some more details about the challenge of the GutsyGo week. About why it is a engaging to have appreciation and challenge at the same time. 

He also shared how is the editing done and at the end of our conversation you can hear about how can you cooperate with GutsyGo. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Pedram Aflatuni is an educator, cinematographer and editor. He has developed the method since 2016 and has been educating already over 400 coaches in Finland and baltic area. He’s responsible of educating the method to the coaches and mainly in charge of Gutsy Go’s published media in different platforms. He has directed dozens of youngsters Gutsy Go projects and their video productions. In the year 2021 Pedram won the State Award for Public Information as a part of the Gutsy Go developing team. 

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The theme music (Beat of Nature) is created by Olexy from ⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:  In the second part of our conversation Pedram Aflatuni shared how they work with volunteering projects in Finnish Schools. How integral part of the service project is discovering the real needs of people, and how they use social media and videos to highlight what they want to communicate. 

By communicating I don’t only mean sharing the project, but having real impact in society. He tells a story about how they started a dialogue in Finland about the care for the elderly. 

We talked about how to show in media people who are vulnerable, fragile situation in their lives, and he shared a concrete example, in which the project aimed to prevent bullying. This concrete example even became an education material for schools in Finland. 

We briefly go through how they faciliate the program of the GutsyGo week, how they support students in dealing with rejection and failure. 

At the end of the episode he shared also what kind of materials are available for the coaches and teachers involved in the program. 

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The theme music (Beat of Nature) is created by Olexy from ⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:  I had to the chance to talk to Pedram Aflatuni, who with his colleagues has created a communal method that answers one of Finland’s biggest questions: how can we encourage young people’s participation and prevent societal polarisation?

They combine media, pedagogy and peace work in their project, called Gutsy Go. They create volunteering or service-based project in schools. So you can say that this is comprehensive school education program that is documented into videos. By screening the videos locally and sharing on social media they do a great job inspiring the whole country. 

They improve the resilience and cooperative skills of their participants, which are crucial when facing future challenges.

In the first part of our conversation we talked about how this all started, how the narrative about young people can be changed and also about their first experiences about the power of solidarity in engaging young people. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Pedram Aflatuni is an educator, cinematographer and editor. He has developed the method since 2016 and has been educating already over 400 coaches in Finland and baltic area. He’s responsible of educating the method to the coaches and mainly in charge of Gutsy Go’s published media in different platforms. He has directed dozens of youngsters Gutsy Go projects and their video productions. In the year 2021 Pedram won the State Award for Public Information as a part of the Gutsy Go developing team.

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The theme music (Beat of Nature) is created by Olexy from ⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:  In the second part of our conversation with Elina Marjamäki we talk about stress management and emotion regulation for young people, adults and about Mental Health Skills for youth workers. 

We also explored the usefulness of a resource-oriented approach and the importance of appreciation. 

At the end of the episode we talked about Hope and the importance of meaningful interactions, and we closed our conversation by pointing to the materials, resources created by MIELI. 

I really hope that with these two episodes we sparked your interest in their work.

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Elina Marjamäki (M.Soc.Sc.) works for the Finnish NGO MIELI Mental Health Finland whose goal is to promote mental health and prevent mental health problems in the country. She currently trains and empowers youth workers to support and promote the mental health of young people. She has co-written “Child’s Mind – Promoting mental health in early education and in child health clinics”.

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The theme music (Beat of Nature) is created by Olexy from ⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:  I was lucky to get to know the amazing work they do in Finland at the organization MIELI and talk to one of their experts, Elina Marjamäki. It was inspiring and uplifting to hear about what systemic and persistent work can create in the field of youth work. What she shared is a great example of how it might look like when we really care about youth and the adults around them.

We spoke about how they develop materials for teachers and youth workers. She shares what they mean by the notion of positive mental health and why they say that mental health is a skill. She mentions projects and materials that could be valuable for anyone working with youth. In the description we share links to these resources and I highly recommend visiting their website for further inspiration.

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Elina Marjamäki (M.Soc.Sc.) works for the Finnish NGO MIELI Mental Health Finland whose goal is to promote mental health and prevent mental health problems in the country. She currently trains and empowers youth workers to support and promote the mental health of young people. She has co-written “Child’s Mind – Promoting mental health in early education and in child health clinics”.

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The theme music (Beat of Nature) is created by Olexy from ⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:  This is the second episode of our conversation with Johanna Kronstedt, from Sekasin Chat, Finnland. As the importance of mental health and suicide prevention becomes more and more an important topic generally, it is covered more not only in the field of professionals directly involved in mental health, but in other fields as well, where non-therapeutic providers, other safe adults are present for young people. Youth Workers, coaches, teachers, family members can create a stronger safety net, support system for them. This episode covers topics that can contribute to that. I find talking to Johanna very educative and inspiring. I hope it helps you support young people around you better and with more confidence. 

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The website of Sekasin: ⁠https://sekasin.fi/

Related episodes of our podcast on solution focused approach: 

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The theme music (Beat of Nature) is created by Olexy from ⁠Pixabay⁠.

ABOUT THE EPISODE: our guest was Johanna Kronstedt, an Online Youth Mental Health Counselor in Finland. She works at Sekasin Chat, where they provide mental health support for youth online, in chat format. 

We can learn a lot from interaction with youth. Talking about difficult or heavy topics and having experience in such conversations is even more valuable. That’s why we invited her to share her experience and thoughts on topics that could be useful for people who are in any kind of remote support role for young people. We covered a lot of topics in the first part of our conversation. Starting from what is the difference between in-person and online support, how they prepare their counselors and crew, what are the signs of a good conversation, and what could be useful assumptions for people in supporting roles. We talked about how we can support someone who has suicidal thoughts. We can learn a lot from her experience and attitude toward young people. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Johanna Kronstedt is an Online Youth Mental Health Counselor at Sekasin Kollektiivi in Finland. She studied social psychology in Finland and solution focused therapy in Bristol, UK.

website of Sekasin: https://sekasin.fi/

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The theme music (Beat of Nature) is created by Olexy from ⁠Pixabay⁠.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:  in this episode, we spoke about antibullying and what we can do to have a safer climate in the classrooms. We went through the whole process of supporting a child who is bullied and involving peers as a support group into this. We discuss practical details of this process. The solution focused approach discussed here is a good example of an empowering intervention in groups of youth, that builds on the need for appreciation and connection. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Katrin Berger works with schools in Bremen, Germany supporting them as a solution focused practitioner and trainer at the governmental education services. She is self-employed as an SF therapist, mediator, and trainer  (Lösungswerkstatt). She is an ambassador of solution focused work in schools.

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ABOUT THE EPISODE:

In this episode, our guest was Haesun Moon who is a communication scientist, researcher coach, educator, and a great storyteller. In the second part of our conversation, we talked about connection and empathy in practice. She also answered some questions from listeners and shared some very inspiring examples from her coaching conversations. 

About our guest:

Haesun Moon: Haesun is the Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Brief Coaching and the author of "Coaching A to Z". She created the "Dialogic Orientation Quadrant” (DOQ).

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Website: Canadian Centre for Brief Coaching: https://www.briefcoaching.ca/

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Haesun's book: https://www.coachingatoz.com/

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The theme music (Beat of nature) is created by Olexy from Pixabay.