Based on previous studies and reports (see e.g. Window to Adulthood. A report on support and services for young people in child protection aftercare and unaccompanied minors), young people in aftercare are at greater risk of social exclusion and have poorer general health than other young people of the same age. In Central Finland, this is reflected, for example, in the fact that in 2023, more than 40% of the 673 young people who were aftercare clients were either unemployed or without daily activities, on sick leave, undergoing rehabilitation or participating in a labour market measure. According to the same statistics, 34% of aftercare clients in the Central Finland welfare region have dropped out of secondary education at least once. Region´s social workers estimate that in 2023, 27% of young people in aftercare had significant difficulties with money management, 33% had psychological problems affecting everyday life and 16% had substance abuse problems. The need has therefore arisen to develop a holistic, well-being and independence-oriented approach to work in foster care and aftercare. It would also be important to find new solutions and ways of facing with children and young people who use substances in foster care and aftercare. The Jatkos -project aims to bring change to child protection foster- and aftercare services. The project will help develop new ways of working and practices that will reform foster- and aftercare services to better support young people's overall well-being, self-direction and life management. The project will also bring about new ideas in the way young people in foster- and aftercare deal with mental health and substance abuse problems by strengthening the role of professionals. Co-development and dialogue with foster- and aftercare practitioners, clients and the whole ecosystem is a cross-cutting approach to the project's activities. The project aims to: 1. to renew aftercare as a multi-professional service supporting holistic well-being by establishing a new, easily accessible, multi-professional service in the Central Finland region that takes into account the holistic well-being of young people and is located as a close part of the child protection aftercare team. 2. to develop the operating practices for supporting the independence of young people in foster care and aftercare in the Central Finland welfare region to better meet their needs and to ensure equal quality 3. to develop preventive and harm reduction substance abuse work as part of the foster care and aftercare linkage phase by strengthening the skills of foster care and aftercare professionals and family carers in the field of substance abuse work. 4. To strengthen the use of experience in foster care and aftercare services and their development. This objective is the starting point and value that permeates all the other objectives and measures of the project. One concrete outcome of the project is a multi-professional service and approach to aftercare that supports holistic well-being. The initial name of the service is "Aftercare Counselling", which will be evaluated together with the young people during the project. The service will ensure that young people in aftercare do not miss out on preventive and holistic well-being support. At the end of the project, the service has become an established part of the aftercare activities in the Central Finland region, and the effectiveness of the activities and user experiences have been evaluated and described. Based on the description created, the model can also be disseminated to other regions, for example through joint forums organised by the Soila coordination project. The Jatkos project will develop practices to support independence with young people in foster care and aftercare. The project will organise peer development forums on Together into Adulthood - Supporting Independence, and will create and report on recommendations for independence support for young people in aftercare. The recommendations will also be tested in practice and implemented in the everyday work of actors in the child protection ecosystem in Central Finland. In addition, the project will provide training in the field of substance abuse for foster care and aftercare professionals and family carers to strengthen their competence in substance abuse work. The aim of this package is to increase professionals' knowledge about substance abuse, its use and effects, and to prevent health problems and reduce the need for changes in foster care placements. The evaluation carried out during the project will focus on the needs, achievement of objectives, results and effectiveness of the various measures. Project staff will continuously evaluate the implementation of the project in relation to the project plan. In addition, continuous feedback on the project measures will be collected from the experience actors closely involved in the project activities. Appropriate indicators will be selected to ass