The Health Forest Models in Promoting Work and Functional Abilities

The Health Forest Models in Promoting Work and Functional Abilities project promotes the use of nature-based methods and operating models in the work of social and health professionals working with those in a challenging position, especially those outside working life.

The main goal of the project is to increase competence and co-operation between actors in order to develop multiprofessional services in order to improve the work and functional capacity of those outside working life. The target group of the project is professionals in the social, health and employment services who face challenging clients in their work. Supporting customers' well-being, ability to function and activity promotes their ability to find employment. This will be achieved by developing nature and animal interventions as a tool for social and health care workers. In addition, health forest action models will be created and piloted in cooperation with social and health care actors as well as municipalities and other parties responsible for the natural environment.

Nature-based interventions are particularly beneficial for challenging clients, whose motivation and commitment to improving their own operational capacity can be strengthened. During the project, content will be created for health forest interventions suitable for different customer groups, which can be utilized by the project partners in their own work. The interventions developed in the project are piloted as part of social and health care services with a model in which a health care professional guides the client to professionally supervised nature activities using a “nature recipe”.

In healthcare, nature prescriptions can be directed, for example, to the long-term sick or to the social support services of young adults. During the project, a new kind of cooperation will be formed between the natural resources sector, the social and health care sector, employment actors and education and research organizations. Municipal actors participating in the project, as well as private and public sector social and health sector actors, have a clear picture of how the effects of natural well-being can be utilized to improve the well-being and functional capacity of different customer groups. As a result of the project, nature-based, welfare-supporting or rehabilitative operating models for different needs will be used with the customers of the municipalities and the Kainuu Sote. A key result is also information on the effects of nature interventions implemented during the project on social and health services for different client groups.

The project is funded by the European Social Fund and co-implementers. The project is implemented by the Natural Resources Center and Kajaani University of Applied Sciences. In addition, the partners are Kainuu Sote, Kainuu municipalities and employment actors, Metsähallitus Nature Services and Kainuu Vocational College. Rehabilitative or health-promoting activities in forest and other natural environments are planned, tested and evaluated together with the participants. Actors in social and health care or municipal health promotion work together with natural environment experts to develop co-operation models suitable for each locality in order to promote the rehabilitation of clients.