Youth Guidance Centres

Youth Guidance Centres (ungdomsmottagningar) are clinics targeted for young people between 12 and 25 years of age. Guidance centers can be found in most of the municipalities in Sweden. They offer free-of-charge services with the mission of promoting sexual health and strengthening identity and personality development. Prevention and early detection of mental health and social problems are also parts of the mission.

The centres collaborate with child and adolescent psychiatry (BUP), adult psychiatry, maternal health care, schools and other municipal actors in the youth field. The centres also conduct outreach activities, mainly through visits to or from school classes. Outreach work even include visiting festivals, residential care homes for young persons (HVB-hem) and youth recreational centres. More information about Youth Guidance Centres is available in section 4.6, Access to Quality Services.

UMO.se – online youth guidance 

UMO.se is a website for young people between the ages of 13 and 25, offering information about sex, health and relationships. The website provides information about bodily functions and development, sex, alcohol and drugs, self-esteem, depression and more. Information is provided by different kinds of media: texts, videos and slideshows. UMO.se aims to offer information and inspiration to help young people to manage their own situation: at home, in relationships, in school or at work. Conventional norms are questioned and discussed.

Anyone between the ages of 13 and 25 can ask personal questions about sex, health and relationships and be anonymous. The questions are answered by professionals working at UMO or at a youth guidance centre. Answers to many common questions are also available on Fråga UMO (Ask UMO).

UMO.se contains information on how to seek help and support. Information links to all local youth guidance centres are listed. The local guidance centres are responsible of updating the information on their activities.

Interviews with young people on various topics, including having HIV, young parenthood and online dating are available at the website. UMO.se contains even Our Stories page, where young people are invited to tell their life stories and read other people's stories.

UMO is run by Stockholm County Council, at the request of the e-healthcare consortium of the county councils/regions in Sweden, Eira (Inera), and in cooperation with youth guidance centres, student health and organisations like RFSU, RFSL Youth, BRIS and many others. UMO also involves young people for controlling the quality of the contents.

Youth guidance for newly arrived – Youmo.se

The multilingual Youmo.se website provides information about health, gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights. The website is targeting newly arrived young people between 13 and 20 years of age, and is part of the government’s effort to provide information for newly arrived young people.

Youmo.se is based on content from the UMO.se website, presented in Swedish, English, Arabic, Dari, Somali and Tigrinya. The website contains texts, illustrations, slideshows and films that answer questions about the body, about love and friendship, mental health, sexuality and gender equality. UMO.se, an online youth guidance service, has developed the site in close cooperation with young people.

 

Several content parts are specifically designed for Youmo.se. An example is a slide show that explains concepts like stress and anxiety and provides suggestions on how to feel better. Another example is an easy-to-read overview on where to get health care and support. Subjects like honor-based oppression, selling sex and sexual abuse are presented from several viewpoints.



Besides Youmo.se, this government initiative includes training for professionals working among young asylum seekers and newly arrived, in healthcare or in youth guidance centres, on how to provide better information by using youmo.se. Training material, Youmo in practice, for this purpose has been developed by the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society, MUCF. The material i available both in Swedish and  English versions (a short version).