Participation is not simply about taking part in activities that have already been planned. At Niemikotisäätiö, our aim is to ensure that service users have opportunities to influence their own everyday lives, the foundation’s activities and the development of services – and to share their own experiences and expertise for the benefit of others.
This idea is closely linked to recovery orientation. Its starting point is the individual, with their own goals, strengths and experiences. Alongside professional knowledge, we also need an understanding of what services, recovery and everyday life look like from the perspective of the people who use those services.
At Niemikotisäätiö, this perspective is incorporated in many ways: through experts by experience, peer support, service development and communications.
Turning experience into expertise
Niemikotisäätiö has been training experts by experience for more than ten years. Preparations for the training programme began in 2015, and the tenth group graduated in autumn 2025.
Today, the training programme comprises approximately 60 hours over a period of nine months. It explores expertise by experience from many perspectives, including participation, recovery orientation, structuring and sharing one’s own recovery story, supervision, networking, and identifying one’s own skills and strengths.
The aim of the training is to reduce prejudice associated with mental health conditions and support people in living meaningful lives by offering opportunities for participation, belonging to a community and having an influence in society.
Those who have completed the training can take on a wide range of roles within the foundation. They participate in working groups and service development, work as trainers by experience and peer facilitators, provide peer support, and contribute their expertise at various events.
We have received a great deal of positive feedback on the training, and interest in it has grown in recent years. This reflects a desire to give personal experiences new meaning by using them to support others and help develop services.
Our own guide for experts by experience
Expert by experience Aino S. has created Niemikotisäätiö’s own Guide for Experts by Experience. It is intended both for experts by experience in mental health services and for professionals working in the field.
In addition to the fundamentals of expertise by experience, the guide covers topics such as ethical principles, recovery orientation, encountering people in recovery, personal wellbeing, recognising and managing stress, and practical advice for working as an expert by experience.
The guide is also a good example of what bringing experiential knowledge alongside professional knowledge can mean in practice: an expert by experience is not merely the recipient of services or someone asked to comment on them, but also a producer of knowledge.
Read the Guide for Experts by Experience
Peer support has a long tradition
Alongside expertise by experience, peer activities have a long tradition at Niemikotisäätiö. A good example is VerNetti, a mental health association run by service users at the Haaga Activity Centre, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2025. Peer support, community and doing things together have always been at the heart of the association’s activities.
VerNetti and Niemikotisäätiö’s expert-by-experience activities were also presented to an international audience in September at the European Conference on Mental Health in Prague. Peer facilitator and expert by experience Kaisa Talvinen and Experience Coordinator Sirpa Sinisalo presented the work under the title Mental health support society “Vernetti” – 20 years of peer power in Helsinki, Finland.
Speaking at an international conference felt daunting beforehand, but the experience left a strong sense of achievement. The presentation generated interest, received positive feedback and brought the service user’s own voice to an international audience of professionals.
This is participation in a very concrete form: personal experiences are not shared only within one’s own community, but experiential knowledge can also reach training sessions, working groups and international expert meetings.
Read more about VerNetti and Niemikotisäätiö’s experts by experience in Prague
Peer support is also part of everyday life
Peer support does not only mean trained experts by experience or individual presentations. It is part of everyday activities in many of our units. At the Haaga Activity Centre, for example, a large proportion of groups are led by trained peer facilitators, who, together with experts by experience, are also offered supervision, further training and recreational activities. Peer support and peer facilitators also play an important role in activities such as Mieli Töihin coaching and Cultural Workshop Elvis.
At the heart of peer support is the opportunity to meet someone who has personal experience of similar life situations. Professional support and support based on lived experience do not replace each other; at their best, they complement one another.
Co-creation means developing services together
Participation at Niemikotisäätiö also takes the form of co-creation, in which service users’ experiences, views and ideas are used in planning and developing activities and services.
At Valtti Valmennus, for example, co-creation is an active part of the work. Employment and study coaching services are systematically developed together with service users to better meet their needs. Co-creation is based on the idea that people who use a service possess practical, experience-based knowledge that cannot be replaced by a purely professional perspective. Experts by experience involved in development work also work alongside employment coaches in facilitating coaching groups.
Another important forum for co-creation at Niemikotisäätiö is the YTR cooperation group. It provides a structure in which the views of service users, alongside those of professionals and representatives of the administration, are included in discussions and development concerning the entire foundation. Participation is therefore not limited to one’s own unit: service users also have opportunities to influence the foundation’s activities more broadly. Experts by experience are also establishing their role in other Niemikotisäätiö working groups.
The service user’s voice is also heard in communications
In recent years, we have increasingly sought to give service users a stronger voice in Niemikotisäätiö’s communications. It is important that we do not simply tell stories about people, but that they have opportunities to tell their own stories, create content and decide what they consider worth sharing.
A good example is Haagan Haiku, a magazine created by service users at the Haaga Activity Centre. The magazine is produced collaboratively by a magazine group: participants plan the content, write and proofread texts, and help select images, themes and the publication’s visual style. Contributors take on different roles according to their own interests and strengths. The latest issue of Haiku grew to around 60 pages.
Creating Haiku is about much more than communications. Participants can learn and use skills in writing, photography, illustration, ideation and publishing – and see the tangible results of their work in a finished magazine. Haiku is therefore a good example of participation in which service users are not recipients of ready-made activities but active creators themselves.
Read more about Haagan Haiku and the people behind it
Our Hyvä mieli customer magazine also publishes texts, images and experiences created by service users. In the Varjoista valoon blog, writers can explore mental health, recovery and life from their own perspectives, while the Niilo.me community platform provides opportunities for safe communication, discussion, community activities and diverse forms of digital participation online.
Ultimately, participation is also a question of equality
Service users’ experiential knowledge must have a place wherever activities and services affecting them are planned, implemented and evaluated.
This does not mean that everyone should want to speak publicly, join a working group or become an expert by experience. Participation also includes the right to choose for oneself how much and in what ways one wishes to take part.
Over the years, Niemikotisäätiö’s training for experts by experience, peer facilitator activities, VerNetti, service users’ own publications and digital communities have developed into different ways of putting the same principle into practice: service users have their own voice and perspective, their own knowledge and expertise – and there must be room for them.
