Applying for socio-educational family assistance

Do you need support as a family or as a single parent to cope with your everyday family life? Then the socio-educational family help is a possibility for you. The socio-educational family assistance is a form of help for education by the youth welfare office.

Socio-educational family assistance is an educational aid to which legal guardians are entitled if an education in accordance with the child's best interests is not guaranteed and the assistance is suitable and necessary for his or her development. Through intensive care and accompaniment, it is intended to support families in their educational tasks, in coping with everyday problems, in resolving conflicts and crises as well as in contact with offices and institutions and to help them help themselves.

Socio-educational family support takes place directly in the family and in their home. The addressee is the entire family. The family receives support in everyday questions and in the form of pedagogical processing of problem situations. For this purpose, a socio-educational specialist regularly comes to the family for several hours a week. The design of the aid is based on the concrete everyday life and needs of the family. It refers to educational issues, support in e.g. school matters, as well as to all other problems and challenges of the family, or its members, e.g. the housing situation and finances, daily and weekly structure, illnesses, relationships of family members with each other and in the social environment.

The socio-educational family assistance is particularly supportive for single parents, who are heavily burdened by coping with everyday family life, as well as families in crisis situations, conflict situations and for families with everyday problems. The support is designed as an aid to self-help.
Individual goals are developed with the family, which are based on the respective resources and abilities of the family members. Goals can be:

• Restoration and strengthening of parenting skills
• Ensuring the best interests of the child
• Uncovering strengths and abilities of each family member
• Support in coping with everyday life
• Strengthening self-esteem
• Strengthening the capacity for conflict
• Support in crisis management
• Improving relations with each other and in the social fabric

Please clarify with the responsible youth welfare office which documents you need to submit.

Please contact the Youth Welfare Office responsible for you

In principle, an informal application must be submitted to the responsible youth welfare office, this is also possible orally, but a written application is advisable. The Youth Welfare Office will help you with the application and will also advise you on further support options. Socio-educational family support must help the affected children.
The Sozialpädagogische Familienhilfe can help you with these problems:

• You have problems with the organization of everyday life.
• They need support in dealing with public authorities, schools and doctors.
• You have difficulties in caring for and raising your children.

An important prerequisite for the success of the service is your willingness to accept help and work on changes.

Contact the competent authority with your problems. It decides whether educational aids make sense and which aids are eligible.
The competent authority will help you with the application and also advise you on other ways to help.
If the help for education is approved, all participants create a help plan together. It specifies how the educational aids should be designed in your case. It is important that all family members benefit from it.

The SPFH can be applied for at any time, depending on the place of residence, waiting times can be expected.

Hint:
The socio-educational family help should primarily be help for self-help. It is intended to solve the problems of a family in the long term and is therefore usually designed for a longer period of time. The exact duration in each individual case is determined by the Youth Welfare Office together with all those involved and determines it in the help plan.

The costs of socio-educational family assistance are borne by the Youth Welfare Office.