The Finnish Student Health Service (FSHS) will receive a donation of mental health therapy services for students in higher education from the Finnish RELEX Foundation and healthcare company Heltti. Heltti’s short-term therapy provided by psychologists will bring an additional contribution to the production of FSHS’s services and help meet the demand for mental health services. As a donation to FSHS clients, Heltti will provide about 900 short-term therapy services. Heltti will provide the services with the donation funds received from the RELEX Foundation.
“Starting cooperation with Heltti is one way to reduce the therapy queue. Heltti’s short-term therapy work complements FSHS’s services. We produce short-term therapy ourselves and have good experiences of its effectiveness in certain situations. Heltti already operates as one of the providers of short-term therapy according to our current framework agreement and has seen the growth in students’ service needs. We are extremely grateful for Heltti’s initiative and additional service, as well as the RELEX Foundation for its donation”, says Teija Kulmala, Medical Director at FSHS.
The demand for mental health services for students has tripled over the past three years. During this time, FSHS has created new forms of mental health services and received additional funding to offer more comprehensive services and accelerate access to treatment.
“Customers come to Heltti’s therapy service through FSHS’s service path and with the same criteria as our own service. FSHS’s low-threshold mental health services include, among other things, group therapy, online courses, and guided self-care. If necessary, we offer psychologist-provided short-term therapy and psychiatrist services. The treatment method is chosen according to the client’s situation”, says Teija Kulmala.
“We have been a service provider of student therapies and are very concerned about the adequacy of mental health services for students, future working-age people. Especially getting early-stage support is important. That’s why we started to explore our network to find a way to increase therapy volumes quickly. It’s really great that we found a flexible solution with FSHS and our donation partner, RELEX Foundation, to help alleviate the queues”, says Henrik Skyttä, Director of Heltti’s therapy services.
“In short-term therapy, we actively work with both symptoms and the root causes that maintain them. With a common understanding, a package tailored to the needs of each student is created. At the end, the effectiveness of the therapy is evaluated”, says Katri Kanninen, Heltti’s trainer psychotherapist, doctor of psychology, and one of the developers of short-term therapy approach.