Joensuu, Nea and Pirkkalainen, Anne. Families’ opinions about mobile youth work. Mobilizing youth work. 57p., 1 appendix. Language: Finnish. Järvenpää, Spring 2015. Diaconia University of Applied Sciences: Degree Programme in Social Services, Option in Social Services and Education.

This thesis is a part of a development project called Mobile youth work. It has been done in cooperation with youth work department in the city of Kerava. The city of Kerava is mobilizing their youth work. The aim of this project was to develop a new way of doing youth work, instead of just putting it into the practice in a traditional way. Furthermore, the aim of the thesis was to bring the opinions of different kinds of families to the project and to bring forward the importance of the cooperation between the workgroup and the parents in the development of the project and in the work done amongst the young people. The target groups of the project are children and the young people between the ages of 13-17 years. To see how families would react to the project we inter-viewed families in Kerava. The interview was open with some helping questions. We asked the families how the project should be developed in their opinion and how we would get the families and their children to take part in the project. The analysis of the interviews can be seen through the thesis, bringing forward the opinions of the families. In the theoretical frame of reference, the key concepts are family and inclusion as well as different kinds of forms of the youth work and their developing. The aim of this research is to describe the different phases, risks and multidisciplinary connections and the importance of the family in the project and in the youth work in general. In our thesis, we describe the development of the project as a form of activity and the factors that have influenced it. This research asks questions concerning organizing the mobile youth work and considers the development needs based on the family interviews. Furthermore, some broader aspects of the youth work were stated there, which essentially relate also to the future of the mobile youth work project. In our thesis, we found out that families would like to participate in the Mobiilinuorkka project with their children and youth. We also found out that families would like their children to participate in structured free time activities.

Key words: youth work, family, educational partnership, multi professionalism