V‑I-T — Net­wor­king — Inter­ac­tion — Par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on

Within the frame­work of the Fede­ral Par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on Act (§ 11 SGB IX), the pos­si­bi­li­ty was crea­ted to imple­ment model pro­jects to streng­then reha­bi­li­ta­ti­on. The Job Cent­re Darm­stadt (gE) and the muni­ci­pal Job Cent­re Kreis Groß-Gerau (AöR) are par­ti­ci­pa­ting in the cor­re­spon­ding fun­ding pro­gram­me "Inno­va­ti­ve Ways to Par­ti­ci­pa­te in Working Life — reh­apro" with the pro­ject "V‑I-T — Net­wor­king — Inter­ac­tion — Par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on." The ITA and the Insti­tu­te for Social Pedago­gi­cal Rese­arch Mainz (ism) are respon­si­ble for the sci­en­ti­fic moni­to­ring and eva­lua­ti­on of V‑I-T.

Despi­te inten­si­ve efforts on the part of the two job cen­tres, it beca­me appa­rent that even a recep­ti­ve labour mar­ket, as exis­ted in the Rhi­ne-Main regi­on in the years befo­re the Covid 19 pan­de­mic, did not enable bene­fi­ci­a­ries with seve­re health pro­blems to take up work to the ext­ent hoped for. The part­ners will the­r­e­fo­re deve­lop and test an inno­va­ti­ve con­cept for this tar­get group.

The tar­get group of the pro­ject are bene­fit reci­pi­ents with men­tal impairm­ents and/or depen­den­cy dis­or­ders aged 25 and over from the muni­ci­pal Job Cent­re Groß-Gerau and the Job Cent­re Darm­stadt.

The pro­ject focu­ses on two fun­ding poli­cy goals: "Main­tai­ning or res­to­ring ear­ning capa­ci­ty" and "impro­ving social and occu­pa­tio­nal par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on". The core of the pro­ject is the estab­lish­ment of an inno­va­ti­ve orga­ni­sa­tio­nal struc­tu­re inclu­ding com­pre­hen­si­ve net­wor­king and the test­ing of inno­va­ti­ve indi­vi­du­al ser­vices.

The inno­va­ti­ve ser­vices and/or mea­su­res tes­ted should be sui­ta­ble for:

• to main­tain or res­to­re ear­ning capa­ci­ty,
• to coun­ter­act an immi­nent (par­ti­al) reduc­tion in ear­ning capa­ci­ty,
• to impro­ve social and pro­fes­sio­nal par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on,
• enable peo­p­le to find employ­ment that meets their needs,
• to redu­ce reser­va­tions in the recruit­ment of peo­p­le with health impairm­ents on the part of social and occu­pa­tio­nal actors,
• to pro­vi­de inten­si­ve coun­sel­ling and sup­port for peo­p­le with health pro­blems who are capa­ble of working,
• iden­ti­fy the abili­ties (to be res­to­red) of peo­p­le with health impairm­ents and use the­se as a basis for action plan­ning, and
• to reli­e­ve the social envi­ron­ment of peo­p­le with health impairm­ents.

In order to bet­ter sup­port health-impai­red bene­fi­ci­a­ries, expert coun­sel­ling and sup­port from a sin­gle source is nee­ded. The­r­e­fo­re, inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry coun­sel­ling teams are being estab­lished. They con­sist of experts from the fields of health coa­ching, medi­cal coun­sel­ling, psy­cho­lo­gi­cal coun­sel­ling and the labour mar­ket. The focus is on coa­ching and indi­vi­du­al coope­ra­ti­on with the par­ti­ci­pan­ts.

The sci­en­ti­fic moni­to­ring and eva­lua­ti­on by the ITA and the ism covers a broad spec­trum of goals and metho­do­lo­gi­cal approa­ches. The pro­ject struc­tu­re and the pro­ject and team deve­lo­p­ment are sup­port­ed by a high­ly demand-ori­en­ted and dif­fe­ren­tia­ted pro­cess of pro­cess sup­port. The eva­lua­ti­on has a for­ma­ti­ve and sum­ma­ti­ve func­tion. It takes into account the most diver­se per­spec­ti­ves on the fun­ding approach, inclu­ding tho­se of the tar­get group its­elf, of coa­ches and of actors in the social space.