2025

Varjo, Janne Tapani; Kalalahti, Mira; Vilkman, Minna

Current public policies are becoming increasingly based on and measured by impacts, even though the impact itself and the processes leading to it have not been sufficiently theorised or modelled. In this article, we discuss the multi-dimensionality of impact-driven public policies. Our study focuses on the constitution of the impacts of public guidance policies in Finland, where guidance is publicly funded and multi-sectoral service. We scrutinize the elements of the impacts by analysing local experts’ views (n = 16) on the aims of guidance services, the means chosen to achieve these aims and how they are evaluated. The article proposes that the aims, means and evaluative practices of guidance policies in education, employment and youth sectors are differentiated. This does not fit with the current understanding of guidance as a single but multisectoral system. Simultaneously, our analysis portrays the ways in which public guidance policies, and the practices involved, have been given aims that are multilevel, involving expected individual, systemic and societal impacts. These multisectoral and multilevel factors obscure the formation of a conceivable impacts of public guidance policies in Finland.