Social emergencies require time

The Emergency Response Centre Agency also forwards tasks to social and crisis emergency services. In 2024, the number of these tasks increased by 4 percentage points compared to the previous year, overtaking the number of tasks forwarded to rescue services.

The number of tasks forwarded by the Emergency Response Centre Agency to social and crisis emergency services has been increasing year after year. The reasons behind this include not only increased awareness of social and crisis emergency services and demographic change, but also many other societal phenomena that can cause acute challenges and social emergencies. Recognising social emergencies is part of the job of an emergency response centre operator and one of the competences provided by the Emergency Response Centre Operator degree programme. In fact, the degree programme has also contributed to the growing number of tasks: ERC operators have become better at recognising social emergencies because of it.

− “Social emergencies can be caused by long-standing challenges in everyday life, which at some point trigger an acute emergency. Identifying a situation as an acute emergency falling under the purview of social and crisis emergency services takes more time on the part of the ERC operator than identifying a prehospital emergency care emergency, for example, and the increase in the number of these emergencies is also reflected in the increase in the average response time for all emergency calls,” says Branch Manager Ari Ekstrand from the Emergency Response Centre Agency.

Situations in which the Emergency Response Centre Agency will forward a task to social services include situations where a minor is in need of treatment or care, has run away or used drugs. In the case of older people, they can include situations where an older person is in acute need of assistance and is not a client of home care, for example. Acute crisis assistance is provided in the event of an accident, for example. A large proportion of the tasks forwarded to social and crisis emergency services are multi-agency tasks requiring assistance from several authorities.

Social Worker Sonja Kouttinen encounters people of all ages in need of help during her work carrying out acute social welfare tasks for the wellbeing services county.

− “In addition to the tasks forwarded to us by emergency response centres, we also handle acute situations brought to our attention by other authorities or our customer helpline. The most common tasks include acute child welfare services tasks and assessing the care needs of older people, but we also handle our fair share of crisis tasks,” Kouttinen says.

Recognising emergencies is key

Although the number of tasks forwarded to social services has increased, there are still emergencies that go unrecognised.

− “Emergencies that may go unrecognised can include situations involving people’s loved ones, for example. People can be hesitant about reporting their loved ones to the authorities and making emergency calls about situations involving them,” Kouttinen says.

Social and crisis emergency services can also be contacted via their own helplines, the numbers of which can be found on the websites of wellbeing services counties, for example. In less urgent situations, they can also be contacted using the forms available on the websites of the wellbeing services counties. However, in the event of an emergency, it is important to call the emergency number 112 without delay.