Family Consulting: Aid for Education

Head of Department: Halina Seif
seif@integrationavp.de
+49 211 520273 14

Aid for Education (AfE)

The AfE department was founded in 2005. The offers are aimed mainly on families of migrants. As our integration association has Russian-speaking roots, we mainly look after families of East European migrants. However, the range of services is open to all ethnic groups.

The target of concentration is the attention to the questions accompanying the migration, the necessity to reach understanding in the native language and in general to contribute to successful integration.

To provide understanding of existing possibilities the consulting work should consider cultural distinctions on the one hand and contribute to the mastering of values and norms of the new social environment on the other hand.

Advice und support

Migrant families with children and adolescents, as well as single parents, who for various reasons cannot help themselves and have a need for aid to upbringing, are rendered fast and flexible assistance.

The staff are professionals in the field of social work and social pedagogy, psychology and systemic family therapy.
Their language skills and knowledge of specifics of social adaptation in the countries of origin reduce the culture-specified communication errors and help families to overcome the barriers existing for youth.

Understanding the differences in mentality facilitates for our personnel the establishment of contacts with families of migrants and their consulting.

Quality assurance

For quality assurance in the framework of aid to education are used the following measures:

  • Regular exchange of experience
  • Collegial advice for the AfE personnel and their supervision in the team
  • Regular documenting and control of processes, purposes, results as well as sequence of the taken measures
  • Possibility of regular professional development for employees

Peculiarities of our work in the AfE

CULTURAL VALUES

Mediation between cultural norms, values and, the hitherto unknown German aid system.

LANGUAGE ASSISTANCE

Assistance in overcoming language barriers while dealing with different agencies.

MEDIATION

Mediation in further help offers that are limited due to lack of such ones in their mother language.

Our services and spheres of action

Methodological approach and procedures in the area of Aid to Upbringing are based on the principles of social work in Germany:

  • Individual work with a view to improving the human conditions
  • Collective social work in order to develop social skills
  • Public work to improve socially significant structures

Possible application areas:

  • Migration-caused limitation of orienteering
  • Excessive demands due to family conflicts and crises
  • Mental instability or illness of a parent
  • Special difficulties due to separation or divorce
  • Self-dependence of youngsters
  • Addiction problems
  • Violence (including sexual assault)
  • Signs of child welfare danger
  • Massive irregularities over longer periods, in schools or kindergartens
  • Truancy
  • Aggressive or depressive behaviour

The range of the services provided according to § 27 ff., as well as § 36 SGB VIII mainly aims at the following:

  • Overcoming crises and burdening situations in families, relationships and education
  • Enabling families to overcome crises and burdening situations independently
  • Motivating families, children and adolescents to accept help
  • Amelioration of parents‘ educational skills
  • Enabling people to take responsibility for themselves and their children
  • Development of extra-familial framework conditions, encouragement of positive developmental conditions for children and adolescents
  • Development, support, encouragement and the use of resources provided by families, children and adolescents
  • Families‘ and adolescents‘ integration into their environment
  • Transition to independence for adolescents and young adults

The association of AVP plans to provide the following kinds of assistance:

  • Participation in the regional team of specialists; thematic consultations and cooperation with coordinated services.
  • Organization and control of experts by a competent Coordinator.
  • Consultations with participating organizations on the development of case-oriented assistance.
  • Preparation and summing up negotiations on assistance with clients
  • Participation in interviews with clients on planning assistance, monitoring of specific cases
  • Participation in the planning of further assistance during the process
  • Analysis and assessment of the efficiency of rendered assistance
  • Case documentation, file management, reporting
  • Referral for psychological Diagnostics
  • Clarification of the requirements for individual assistance
  • Clarification of family resources
  • Telephone standby service (24 hours)

“All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Lev Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina”