Municipal Youth Work Development Network Kanuuna (Cannon)

Kanuuna advocates for municipal youth work and serves youth work professionals throughout the country. As the main realiser of the centre of expertise for municipal youth work, Kanuuna’s objective is to strengthen expertise and cooperation in the field, increase awareness of the work and the production of information as well as develop and model quality assessment of youth work.

Based on a long-standing network

Kanuuna’s origins date back to a network founded by directors of youth services in 2006. Initially, this development network involved the youth services of the ten largest cities in Finland, but the number of members in the network increased relatively quickly. In 2017, Kanuuna’s members included 28 municipalities that each had a population of over 40,000. Expanding the development activities to smaller municipalities became possible in spring 2018, when Kanuuna was chosen as one of the national centres of expertise for youth services. Since then, Kanuuna has been offering its services, such as training, seminars and peer-to-peer networks, to the youth workers of all municipalities.

Entering the new term as a consortium

Kanuuna’s first term as a centre of expertise concluded at the end of 2019. The activities were continued when the Ministry of Education and Culture also chose Kanuuna as one of the centres of expertise for the term 2020–2023. During the current term, work for municipal youth work is carried out as a consortium of six different operators and administered from Lahti. The centre of expertise activities are funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture.

The consortium involves

  • the South-Eastern Finland University Of Applied Sciences (Juvenia)
  • the Finnish Youth Research Society
  • the City of Oulu / Koordinaatti
  • MIELI Mental Health Finland
  • EHYT Finnish Association for Substance Abuse Prevention
  • Kanuuna network (City of Lahti) is in charge of overall development.

Kanuuna is also involved in the Centre of Expertise Nuoska – Youth Work at Schools and Educational Institutions.