In health and social care, language skills have a direct bearing on the quality of the service and on client safety, yet everyday language is not always enough in the reality of the work. AliceAI Learning\u00ae is a mobile app that teaches professional Finnish for the needs of health and social care. Lyhty ry, a short-term home and workshop in Helsinki, was among the first to join the pilot, both to support the app's development and to help its international care staff learn Finnish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lyhty ry is a non-profit association founded in 1993 whose work centers on promoting the wellbeing of people with intellectual disabilities. Lyhty provides housing services, daytime activities, and cultural and leisure activities. Its staff include nurses and support workers, some of whom come from international backgrounds and are learning Finnish alongside their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Lyhty, language learning has been supported through individual and unit-level arrangements, such as language courses and teachers hired as needed. Much of the learning has also taken place through everyday work. AliceAI Learning gave Lyhty an opportunity to help develop and test an app that could meet the language learning needs of international health and social care professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christiane Schiemer, who oversees Lyhty's housing services and staff development, has worked at Lyhty for 26 years. A nurse by training, she understands the practical importance of language skills: \u201cIf language makes it difficult to manage the bigger picture, it can be harder to develop your skills and reach your full potential.\u201d When AliceAI Learning offered the opportunity to take part in a pilot, the management team took it. \u201cWhy not? Let's try it,\u201d Schiemer sums up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schiemer admits she was nonetheless the most skeptical about the idea: \u201cI was probably the most critical at the start. I recognized my tendency to think that at a product's pilot stage the added value may lie not so much in the product as in developing it. That left me wondering at what point it is wisest to get involved \u2014 perhaps only once the product has been developed further.\u201d What settled it was the benefit and the will to develop. Staff get to learn in the middle of their working day, without absences for external training, for instance. The product had also been developed far enough to be worth trying. And the message to the staff was clear: Lyhty wants to support its people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five employees took part in the pilot, with widely varying initial levels of Finnish proficiency. The group included people trained as nurses and practical nurses, as well as one physiotherapist. Schiemer also used the app herself, hopefully setting a good example for staff as a member of the management team. The nurses gave immediate feedback. They praised the vocabulary and sentence structure exercises and highlighted the storytelling, which made learning more interesting. The health and social care terminology was a pleasant surprise. The app also helped them manage everyday situations in the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pilot ran for six weeks, and the results showed clearly how much motivation matters. The two nurses who practiced the most improved markedly. \u201cOne became so enthusiastic that they even studied Finnish with a family member,\u201d Schiemer says. Most importantly, the pilot gave Lyhty a range of ways to support their staff's development. It also showed the staff concretely that their development matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schiemer recommends AliceAI Learning to any health and social care organization recruiting employees whose Finnish is still at an early stage. \u201cIt offers a safe environment for language learning and is designed specifically for the needs of health and social care,\u201d she says of the app. Schiemer also mentions that she values the fact that the app was developed in Finland. Lyhty is grateful for the chance to have been involved at the development stage. \u201cIt has been a pleasure to see what has been in the making,\u201d Schiemer says.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lyhty ry was among the first to join the pilot. Five employees took part in the six-week pilot, with widely varying initial levels of Finnish proficiency.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":131,"template":"","meta":[],"toimiala":[2],"class_list":["post-123","tarina","type-tarina","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","toimiala-terveydenhuolto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aliceai.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tarina\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aliceai.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tarina"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aliceai.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tarina"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aliceai.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aliceai.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"toimiala","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aliceai.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/toimiala?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}