The development project was carried out based on the development needs of rehabilitative work experience and health and social services in the city of Raisio. The aim of the project was to develop rehabilitative work experience and social and health care services for the unemployed in Raisio by activating and listening to them. Mahittula activity centre offers rehabilitative work activities for the unemployed. The aim was to design a permanent operating model to promote working and functional ability of unemployed people for rehabilitative work experience in Mahittula. Another goal was to develop multiprofessional employment services.

The development project consisted of two parts: a research part and a development part. The objective of the development part of the project was to obtain information about unemployed people’s wishes for participatory activities and to find out opinions and needs relating to health checks for the unemployed. Qualitative research was used as the approach for the applied study. Material was collected using focused interviews with unemployed people undergoing Mahittula’s rehabilitative work experience (N=10). The research material was analysed using content analysis.

According to the interviews, the health checks were regarded as customer-oriented and promoting the health of the unemployed. The unemployed wished that the rehabilitative work experience in Mahittula would include participatory group activities increasing their wellbeing. The results also highlighted areas where services require further development. These included strengthening structures and service counselling, electronic services, service marketing, increasing participation, the development of multiprofessionalism in services, and a modernisation of the health check process.

The development project resulted in the creation of a participatory operating model comprising four events. The operating model was piloted in May 2018 and integrated into Mahittula’s rehabilitative work experience. The implementation of the operating model will be suggested to the employment services of Raisio in order to enable the availability of the participatory model to all unemployed people in Raisio. The development project highlighted several suggestions for development to promote participation and wellbeing among the unemployed people in Raisio.