Multilingual instructors start their work at Helsinki’s playgrounds

Multilingual instructors guide, advise and support immigrant Helsinki residents who speak different languages. At playgrounds, they work not only with children but also their parents.

– We at the Education Division identified challenges in regard to playgrounds reaching all the residents of their areas, so we wanted to come up with ways to encourage foreign-language and newly immigrated families to participate in free-of-charge activities and at the same time provide them with information about other services, explains Project Coordinator Sofia Hildén, providing some background on the new group of professionals found at playgrounds.

Multilingual instructors support the integration of families and provide them with guidance on a variety of issues. For example, they can help families apply for a place in daycare or an after-school club for their children and provide information about different options. With children, they carry out work supporting integration at playgrounds. If the instructor and child have a language in common, they can also support the development of the child’s mother tongue.

Each multilingual instructor works at 5 to 6 different playgrounds in their area. Other playgrounds across the city can also make use of their know-how, where necessary.

The multilingual instructors working at playgrounds speak Finnish, English, Somali, Arabic, Russian, Sorani Kurdish and Turkmen. However, they serve all families speaking different languages, not just their own language group.

Multilingual instructors also work in their areas’ networks and cooperate with maternity and child health clinics and schools, for example. In addition to this, they share their know-how in interacting with people speaking different languages and with different cultural backgrounds within their working communities.

The instructors also work at schools, daycare centres and educational institutions

The multilingual instructors started their work in 2024, with the most recent additions starting in October. Their activities are being funded with an integration support appropriation until the end of 2025.

– However, the aim is to turn the best practices, such as having multilingual instructors at playgrounds, into permanent services, says Hildén.

Helsinki's playgrounds also offer many activities for stay-at-home parents, such as weekly clubs for learning Finnish together. The responsibilities of municipalities for the integration of immigrants increased recently with the new Integration Act.

The City of Helsinki Education Division employs a total of 32 multilingual instructors. Eight of them work at daycare centres, five at playgrounds, 11 at comprehensive schools, four at general upper secondary schools, two at adult education centres and two in Swedish service areas.

Read about the experiences of multilingual instructors Sahro Ibrahim, Iman Weli and Emran Ahmadi working at playgrounds on our website.