Type of Project: Funded project Model project
GPS - Health and perspectives in the social space

As part of the GPS project (Health and Perspectives in the Social Space), a "bridge" is to be created between people with health restrictions and their benefit communities with the respective existing local services. The project's innovative service consists of social space and health-oriented advice and support for beneficiaries and their communities of need as well as the coordination of advice and health services across social service providers with the aim of sustainable job (re-)integration as well as enabling or improving social participation for people with health restrictions. Throughout the entire process, the participants are key agents in the process. An overview of the innovations: - Affected persons as shapers of events; the starting point is the living environment and social space of the beneficiaries; services close to home are given priority. - As a personal coordinator, the social area pilot advises and supports people in applying for and accessing help. If necessary, he/she accompanies participants to appointments and follows up and promotes the implementation of measures that have been started. Help for self-help: The participants are encouraged to use and expand their own social networks and regional self-help structures. - The advice can be provided using a local advice bus (social space). In terms of social space orientation, counseling is not exclusively tied to project premises, but should also take place where people can be reached. A mobile advice bus, project consultation hours in district centers and consultations in the home environment are planned. By using an advice bus, the social space pilots can get to know the participants / the community of need in their living environment and thus better understand the individual social structures. - The advice and support services include the members of the community of need of the person entitled to benefits. The counseling does not refer exclusively to the participants as focus persons, but is systemically oriented. Members of the community of need whose concerns can support or hinder the participant in their decision-making and actions are included in the counseling. This usually starts with a joint consultation with all those involved, in which concerns and expectations are clarified and the next steps are agreed. In this way, target persons with unclear/threatening mental/physical illnesses who would otherwise not have been covered by the project are identified and supported in terms of prevention. - Medical and psychological counseling services are provided in the project. - The participants can take advantage of free health-related courses and benefits in kind via a health checkbook. - Innovative digital tools are used for social space analysis and to implement digital offers for the participants. The basis for the counseling process is the analysis of the social network that the participants have available or need. The existing personal network is recorded with the participant during the anamnesis interview using software. This is recorded and documented digitally (example: digital network map https://www.easynwk.com). The social network map gives participants a better overview of their own resources and networks so that they can access their existing networks more easily and quickly in future. - The Rhein-Berg Jobcenter and the provider (awarding body) provide an interdisciplinary team of social space guides, doctors, psychologists and peer advisors who work closely together in an office community. This includes complementing each other when taking medical histories, coordinating perspective planning and regular case discussions. The peer counselors are full-time members of the team. - There is close cooperation with regional health service providers (e.g. health checkbook) and a participant and BG-related perspective consultation to network internal and external agents. We are certain that coordinated cooperation among all relevant agents, individualized needs orientation and service provision, early and assured recognition of restrictions and continuous support for people and their communities of need are the key to success in maintaining and restoring their ability to work and (re)integration into the labour market. The project's focus on living spaces and the involvement of peer counsellors and self-help organizations means that it offers the prospect of identifying and using low-threshold access points without the support of the job center. At the same time, the project links other agents in the district with the aim of long-term cooperation to support SGB II recipients with health and social problems, who develop their own momentum through this positive cooperation experience from the project in order to actively work together.