| dc.description | Around the age of 18, youth with long term follow-up by several health, care and welfare services transition from child oriented to adult oriented parts of the public sector. This diploma project is an exploration of the gap between these two ”sides” and how to start bridging it.
During the transition to adulthood, youth are in between dependence and independence, childrens rights and adults rights. Parallel to this, they are transferred from services for children and youth to services for adults. The risk is that they fall in between the two sides, as the services struggle to collaborate, share responsibility and see the transition as a longer, fragile process. Youth and their next of kin need flexible and predictable services adapted to their needs. Investing in facilitating a proper transition into an inclusive and independent adult life could equal qualitative and quantitative benefits in the long run, for both the families and the public sector.
The gap between the ”sides” can be bridged in different ways, with small steps and long term, systemic change. Several long standing structures like organizational and financial differences have to be uprooted. In addition to pointing at some of these structures, presenting a future vision and associated principles, I propose interventions - mainly from low hanging fruits. As a stepping stone for further development I created a low threshold tool for adapting information about the transition to each youth´s needs. Another intervention is a set of cards presenting leverage points to stimulate dialogue and reflection across services on each side of a transfer.
Taking small steps towards more flexible and adaptive services should be done parallel to challenging the more systemic, structural barriers for collaboration. Additionally, there is potential in shifting mindsets through stimulating dialogue. This project exemplifies how the complexity can be approached from these angles. | en_US |
