Lectures

1 Child protection.
2 Hitt húsid.
3 Social wealth and prevention measures.

The main goal of the Icelandic Child Protection Act is to ensure that children who live under insufficient conditions or endanger their own health or development are provided with the help they need. An effort is made to strengthen families in their up-bringing role and to take action to protect the child when necessary. The City of Reykjavík puts emphasis on focusing on children in all support work with families, the importance of talking to children, listening to their needs and giving them the opportunity to express themselves without a mediator.

Hitt húsid is a cultural and information centre where young people (16–25 years) are given diverse assistance and advice on e.g. bringing their ideas to fruition. There is also an information centre which is open to anyone requesting assistance and facilities to stage all sorts of events.

The service centres located in various city neighbourhoods place a great deal of emphasis on activating the collective strength of the residents of the neighbourhood in question, i.e. social wealth. We believe that preventive measures and social wealth are closely linked projects and we choose to speak of strengthening social wealth for prevention purposes. Several new and exciting projects relating to various types of group activities, conciliation mediation in neighbour disputes, conciliation mediation between peers in schools and continuity in recreational work have already been initiated, and others based on this ideology will soon be embarked on.