Mieli reports increasingly serious crisis contacts this summer

Finland’s mental health organisation Mieli ry received increasingly serious contacts through its crisis services during the summer, Yle reports.

Contacts related to financial difficulties have increased in recent years both on the crisis helpline and at crisis centre appointments. People have described inadequate income, fear of unemployment and the feeling that help is unavailable. Hunger and even suicidal thoughts linked to financial concerns have also emerged.

The information comes from Mieli’s summer statistics for its crisis helpline and its Crisis Centre Barometer, which was answered by more than 100 crisis centre employees and managers across Finland in June and July.

Nearly three out of four crisis centre professionals estimated that the condition of people seeking crisis help had deteriorated over the past year. Mieli said the share of professionals holding this view has increased significantly over the past two years.

Feelings of insecurity have become more common, as has the perception that society no longer supports people in vulnerable situations as it did before. Young people are afraid of the future, while many older people feel they are a burden on society rather than an asset.

Access to public services is also seen as increasingly difficult. A new concern is whether organisations themselves have enough capacity to provide help.

The crisis helpline received nearly 170,000 attempted calls during the first part of the year, of which almost 59,000 were answered. Mieli said the answering rate rose to 40 per cent during the summer with the help of crisis workers paid for through donations.

The crisis chat was contacted more than 10,000 times, and just under 5,000 contacts received a response.