Family help

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The Social-educational family assistance (SPFH) ( § 31 SGB VIII ) is one of Germany's educational support ( § 27 SGB VIII). “If an upbringing that is appropriate to the well-being of the child or young person is not guaranteed” (Section 27 of Book VIII of the Social Code), legal guardians have the right to “help with upbringing” from the youth welfare service. This help according to Section 27 of Book VIII of the Social Code can be described as "preventive help", as there is no child welfare risk . State services of child and youth welfare are seen as aids for upbringing. The SPFH is one of many forms of educational assistance.

Basics

The SPFH (§ 31 SGB VIII) is a standard offer of youth welfare . It includes the entire family and is specifically used for family situations in which upbringing is not guaranteed or the well-being of the child (s) is endangered. It is seen as a social space-oriented help. In his book, Klaus Wolf describes three essential characteristics of SPFH:

  1. The addressee is the whole family or the "system" and all its members.
  2. It takes place predominantly in the family home and
  3. relates both to educational issues and to all other problems of the family or its members (e.g. housing situation and finances, daily and weekly structure, illnesses, relationships between family members and others and others).

This help is outreach, family-related help and is mostly based on the voluntary nature of the families. Exceptions are situations in which the youth welfare office requires you to visit an SPFH. The family structures are very different, they range from one-parent families to blended families . The predominant clientele are families with several children, especially single parents . Mostly families with low educational qualifications, income levels and indebtedness are cared for. In general, the SPFH addresses all families from all walks of life. Often several problems arise in families at the same time, which is why the stigmatizing term “multi-problem families” is often used carelessly. In general, it is the task of the SPFH to look after the families and to support them in their (everyday) problems. The families should be strengthened and the well-being of the children secured. If the issue of out-of-home care in a home is in the room in a case, this should be avoided as far as possible, so the reintegration of the child / children is always in the foreground, as far as this appears possible. Since each case is different, individual goals are always set which the families should achieve.

Historical development

Forerunner of the SPFH

From 1883 on, the so-called "settlements" developed , especially in England and the USA. They represented shared apartments in which academics lived with the poor after graduation to investigate poverty and its causes. They offered neighborly contacts and further training opportunities, whereby the self-help potential of those affected should be strengthened.

Nursing and home care had existed in Germany since 1899. This served to maintain the household and to take care of the children in case the housewife was absent for various reasons.

The Berlin Society for Home Education (BGfH), which merged in 1969, also played an important role in the historical development. At that time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer developed an idea of ​​an educational alternative to out-of-home care. At that time, family help was more of a kind of domestic help. From 1973 it developed as a special educational measure or as a socio-educational family aid .

Three phases of development in Germany

Heinz Schattner divides the development of the SPFH in Germany into 3 phases. From the 1970 / 1980s, the development of the SPFH began in the old federal states of Germany. In the new federal states this followed in the early 1990s. This phase is called the Pioneering Phase . The approaches focused more on practical life, but the framework conditions were still inadequate. The second phase was that of the consolidation phase . It began in the first third of the 1990s. The construction was largely completed here. The focus now was on ensuring quality and professionalising the SPFH. Practical theoretical approaches, additional training, supervision and evaluations were discussed. Systematic approaches and resource-oriented work were included. Schattner describes the last phase as the reconstruction phase . This time was mainly influenced by the requirements of the Book VIII of the Social Code. It is about the help for upbringing, the demands for "necessary" and "suitable" help, the parents' right to choose and choose as well as the requirements of Section 36 of the Book VIII of the Social Code , Design and review of the aids. The aim was to make the aids more needs-based, but also more cost-effective.

Legal anchoring

The legal basis can be found in SGB ​​VIII, Section Four, “Help for upbringing, integration assistance for mentally handicapped children and young people, assistance for young adults”.

The help for education is anchored in §27 SGBVIII:

If an upbringing that corresponds to the best interests of the child or young person is not guaranteed, legal guardians are entitled to help with upbringing. The type and scope of help always depends on the educational needs in the individual case, so each case is individual. It is important to include the child's / young person's social environment. If education outside the parental home is required, it is possible to continue to provide this help. Educational assistance also includes educational and therapeutic services as well as the inclusion of training and employment measures. If a child or adolescent has a child himself, there is also the possibility of receiving support with care and upbringing.

The SPFH is specifically anchored in Section 31 of Book VIII of the Social Code. There it says:

“Socio-pedagogical family help should support families in their upbringing tasks, in dealing with everyday problems, solving conflicts and crises as well as in contact with authorities and institutions and providing help for self-help through intensive supervision and accompaniment. It is usually designed for a longer period of time and requires the cooperation of the family. "

SPFH in practice

In the SPFH practice, there are various phases that extend over an individual period of time based on the family's need for help. It may be that there are longer waiting times due to the place of residence before the family assistance takes place. The help is deemed to have ended when the previously defined goals between the family and the family helper have been achieved. The five phases are composed as follows: There is a decision phase for the SPFH, a trial or orientation phase, a main phase, a replacement phase and in some cases a follow-up phase.

  • Trial or orientation phase: In this phase, the existing problems are clarified and the basics of cooperation between the family and the family helper are determined. During this time, the goals of the SPFH are concretized and the family and professionals get to know each other and build initial relationships with one another. However, it is also possible here that one or both parties decide not to continue the aid.
  • Main phase : In this phase, the family is accompanied by the specialist and intensive work continues to be carried out to achieve the previously set goals. Values ​​such as openness, transparency and appreciation on both sides are important, so that the skilled workers gain insight into existing relationship and situation patterns and can change (intervene) them if necessary.
  • Relief phase : Here, the goals achieved are to be stabilized and contact with the socio-educational specialist can be broken down in order to make the upcoming farewell easier.

The assistance measures are usually very time-consuming and require patience and determination. The specialists spend an average of 10 hours a week on consultations, home visits, visits to authorities, etc.

Theoretical approaches

Helping people help themselves

“Help for self-help” is identified in Section 31 of Book VIII of the Social Code as an essential task of the SPFH. Six stages of self-help are described (according to GR May, 1996):

Self-help, help and outside help Search direction Guiding principles as practical hypotheses for implementation
1st stage Self help “What people are able to solve themselves cannot be taken over by SPFH and left with these people with appreciation”
Examples: Emphasis on what is available, worthy, praise
2nd stage Self help and help "What people are not yet able to solve, SPFH can temporarily convey"
Examples: conversation, counseling, therapy
3rd stage Future self-help and help "What people are not yet able to do in the time that SPFH is available, SPFH can at best help convey for the future"
Examples: crèche, kindergarten, special needs day care center, early intervention
Transition to outside help
4th stage External help in addition to self-help “What people will probably not be able to solve after a joint effort and a common assessment, not even later, can SPFH possibly help in external help”
Examples: Voluntary initiation of - also temporary - external accommodation
5th stage Self-help in case of doubt before external help “What people may not be able to solve after joint efforts and an ambivalent assessment, and may not be able to solve them later, SPFH can, in case of doubt, mediate self-help rather than outside help”
Examples: Self-help on probation, possibly with failure
Limit to external help
6th stage External help before self-help "What people and SPFH may not be able to solve after joint efforts and a disagreement of assessments may not be able to solve them later, ie if a child endangerment cannot be reduced, SPFH conveys back to the family and public youth welfare as a task."

Self-help is always situation and context dependent. Self-help is not absolute, it is not a skill that you have or you don't have. This means that self-help can, if necessary, be learned and expanded in small steps.

Empowerment & resource orientation

Resources represent ways to solve problems and cope with life. They can be divided into personal, material, familial and extra-familial resources of an informal and formal nature. The decisive factor is that resources must always be seen in a person-environment relationship, that is, people and their environment must never be viewed in isolation from one another. In addition, it should be noted that resources are always assigned a rating and therefore cannot (or can) be experienced neutrally. A distinction is made between different systems: microsystem (family), mesosystem (neighborhood, friends, school), exosystem (youth welfare, social welfare office) and macro system (role models, norms, values).

The main features of resource-oriented action include the following questions, for example:

  • What resources are already available to people in their living environment and which are used?
  • How are these resources used?
  • What resource expansion does working with other people involved require?

It becomes clear that the respective resources are just as individual as the clientele and must therefore be considered individually in each case.

Challenges and opportunities

No positive or negative evaluations should be made in this section. It only describes the challenges or possibilities of the SPFH.

The SPFH is still struggling with insufficient staffing. Due to the lack of available offers in the vicinity, the implementation of the desired help is usually difficult. The help is very time-consuming and, unfortunately, more and more savings have to be made, which makes the work of the specialists more difficult. These savings collide with the need to prevent out-of-home accommodation in any case.

The vague legal concept of “educational needs” is also often criticized. It is not clearly defined what constitutes the educational need. In addition, this need is always based on individual discretion and is based on the respective individual needs.

In general, an essential feature of the SPFH is voluntariness. However, if this help is prescribed by the youth welfare office, the voluntary nature can be questioned, so that in such cases it appears like “help imposed”. However, despite everything, the SPFH specialists are dependent on the voluntariness, acceptance and motivation of the clients in order to be able to provide successful help.

Another challenge in practice is the relationship between closeness and distance or help and control. Due to the mix of levels and the proximity to everyday life, it is important that the specialists remain on a professional level and remain impartial towards their clients. When it comes to the specific specialist area of ​​the skilled workers, necessary skills are required that go beyond the actual knowledge base.

In general, the SPFH is primarily intended to prevent children and adolescents from being cared for. The aim is to help the families and to lead or keep them together. The SPFH is a reliable aid that leads to success in many cases. In addition, the SPFH is a low-threshold help, that is, interested parties have little effort to use and there are no great requirements to be able to accept the help.

Other countries

SPFH is also visibly widespread in Austria and Switzerland (under the term 'socio-pedagogical family support'), where, unlike in Germany, this form of help is not stipulated as a mandatory youth welfare service.

In the USA and in English-speaking countries, there are various approaches to outreach social work with families under the heading of "home visiting", but these are more specialized than the SPFH in certain problem areas (e.g. crisis intervention: 'homebuilders', cognitive early intervention:' Head Start , or Parents as Teachers, Health Education and Abuse Prevention: Healthy Families America). In the special educational field of action 'Social work with families', which is far more comprehensive than the SPFH, methods of crisis intervention in particular have been adapted under titles such as 'Families in focus' (FiM) or ' Family activation management '.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Wolf 2012
  2. ↑ § 31 SGB 8 - single standard. Retrieved January 27, 2020 .
  3. ↑ cf. Schattner 2007 p. 593ff.
  4. ↑ cf. Uhlendorff / Euteneuer / Sabla 2013, p. 192ff.