Lifestyle guidance

Early childhood education and schools are guiding towards healthy lifestyles

Lifestyle guidance starts at an early stage to support choices and guide towards the basic pillars of a good life. Laitila’s early childhood education and care as well as schools support good nutrition and follow the national nutrition recommendations and guidelines, as living conditions and learned health habits in childhood and adolescence have an impact throughout life.

The importance of adequate rest, recovery and reduced screen time for well-being is also recognized, and early childhood education and care offers children the opportunity for a day’s rest.

In day care centres and schools, everyday life takes into account the activities of the Hinku programme and sustainable development, and everyday activities aim to protect the environment and mitigate climate change. For example, crafts are partly made from recycled materials and from an early age, different ways of contributing to sustainable development are discussed. Recycling rubbish, for example, is already familiar to our under-school-age citizens from early childhood education!

Instilling a physical lifestyle in children and young people increases health and well-being. Early childhood education and care as well as schools have increased physical activity indoors, outdoors and in the environment during the school and early childhood education day. We have been involved in the Moving Schools and Moving Early Years projects. Attractive facilities and well-functioning physical activity services increase the physical activity, community and well-being of children and young people in our city.

The most recent outdoor recreation area is the refurbished Sirpu Park, and in addition to providing a pleasant outdoor environment, the area has also been used for a variety of small-scale events organised by both the city and organisations. MLL has been an active player in organising various themed trails, for example, and these have successfully brought families with children together to do things together, to be outdoors and to exercise.

Outdoor areas have of course also been used by groups other than children and young people. For example, +65 events have also been organised in Sirpunpuisto and around Laitila, and these events have helped to involve large numbers of older people in participation and exercise. In addition to lifestyle guidance, the events are also important in supporting both mental and physical well-being, and for many people, social encounters have become an important part of everyday life.

We take part in annual school health surveys and review the information from these to keep up to date with the state of our children’s and young people’s wellbeing and, where necessary, to provide better support for their everyday life and wellbeing.

Youth services are guided in their activities towards healthy lifestyles. Young people have the opportunity to have low-threshold guidance discussions with youth work professionals on issues related to their own lives. One-to-one discussions are particularly important in youth outreach services, where clients often face challenges related to lifestyle guidance.

The vakka-suomi civic education center provides comprehensive lifestyle guidance for different age groups through a wide range of courses; physical education, home economics, sustainable development and health-related lectures. The sports department is involved in organizing and facilitating sports groups.

In addition to these, the city organizes, in cooperation with Valonia, for example, energy guidance. Laitila has a HyVa working group involving the vakka-suomi civic college, the music college, the youth department, the cultural department, the sports department and the library department.

In addition to the excellent outdoor and sports areas, Laitila has a cycling and walking promotion program to encourage and support everyday mobility. The library also has lifestyle literature and sports equipment with instructions for use available for loan.