Problem addressed
Measures and digital tools are rare in social work globaly. However, digitalization is becoming more and more popular with the advent of artificial intelligence for the use of social welfare. Often, data collections with meters appear to respondents from traditional forms and it is not motivating for the customer, especially young people, to answer administrative queries. There is therefore a clear need for customer-oriented user interfaces that strengthen agency and inclusion. If support cannot be accessed on time, problems become more complex and prolonged. This can lead to social exclusion (loneliness), marginalisation and resentment towards society. At the same time, the society loses the young person’s potential.
Innovative solution
ZekkiPro is based on the experiences from open zekki.fi website.
ZekkiPro offers support for strengthening wellbeing in three ways. First, an understanding of one's own life situation becomes clear to the respondent when he or she does a quick but comprehensive life situation survey which highlights both problems but also strengths. Often, one's own resources are hidden if there are difficulties in some area of life. Seeing areas of life that are in good shape supports in trouble. Second, ZekkiPro can be used to generate verbal, encouraging feedback for each area of life. This way, a professional can use ZekkiPro to give their customers the kind of feedback they think is best. Third, ZekkiPro also offers the organization's own services based on the self-assessment of the clients. ZekkiPro is integrated into the national Suomi.fi Service Data Reserve and picks up from there suitable public services for the customer as well as support provided by NGOs. In the screening of services, the employee is assisted by artificial intelligence, but services are always provided by human decision.
Key results and benefits
The roots of ZekkiPro are in 3X10D measure and open Zekki.fi website. 3X10D is widely used in projects and social services nationwide. The measure is validated before, and validating studies are going on. Zekki.fi is nominated in 2021 European innovation council's the best European social innovation (EUSIC) award and it has also been awarded in national competitions. ZekkiPro is also integrated into the organization's customer information system and its results have been taken to the organization's information management dashboard.
Potential for mainstreaming
ZekkiPro is a scalable social innovation. The technical and visual implementation, and the simple logic enables it to be transferred to different contexts and scaled according to country- or region-specific needs or for specific groups, like immigrant youth or young people with disabilities (e.g. autism) or families or elderly people. The development approaches used (co-creation, service design, training processes, communication), are scalable.
