ICh – I Have a Chance

What were your goals in the project ICh?

The aim of the ICh project was to improve the support structure for Jobcentre Ostholstein clients with multiple health-related impairments. Together with our cooperation partners – including the German Pension Insurance, health insurance funds, and the district of Ostholstein – we sought to create shorter, more efficient pathways within the support system, both in terms of physical access and organisational procedures.

The target group often faces a particularly complex bureaucratic and organisational environment. The project aimed to address this complexity, reduce the burden on clients, and place their individual needs at the centre of support.

A further goal was to improve mutual understanding of the respective responsibilities and activities of all actors involved in supporting this group.

 

Are there any topics and focal points that have turned out to be particularly important for you in the project when it comes to pursuing these goals? If so, which ones?

During the project and even as early as the application phase in 2018, three things became increasingly clear:

• How little health-related problems were considered in the Jobcentre’s work on labour market integration.
• That the topic of health is one very central for our work.
• That bad mental health conditions very often occur among our clients’ health impairments.

Many clients experienced mental health issues triggered by long-term unemployment and the associated financial hardship. This made social isolation and the lack of participation key issues. Thus, the topics of loneliness and social inclusion became central to our five-year project.

 

What were key challenges you faced during the project?

The most significant challenge was the limited staffing capacities of our cooperation partners, as well as communication across different hierarchical levels within those organisations.

While leadership teams often believed sufficient time resources were available for project cooperation, staff on the ground who were actually meant to work with us saw things differently. They would have liked to commit more time to the project but were unable to do so on top of their existing workloads.

We at Jobcentre Ostholstein also had limited resources and carried out the project with only four case managers. With more staff, we could have supported more participants and likely met the project’s originally defined targets more effectively. Interestingly, we expected significantly fewer volunteers than the roughly 300 participants who ended up joining.

Another major challenge was the COVID-19 pandemic.

Responsibilities between different stakeholders were sometimes unclear or insufficiently communicated – and in some cases, remain so today. The issue of social isolation was already serious when the project began in November 2019, due to long-term unemployment. Though this improved during the project, the onset of the pandemic and related contact restrictions represented a significant setback for us.

 

What strategies did you use to deal with those challenges?

We bundled appointments involving clients and cooperation partners wherever possible to reduce time demands. In practice, this meant partners would only come to us when there were several clients whose cases needed to be discussed jointly.

We also intensified case-related communication to clarify responsibilities and questions more quickly and to increase transparency.

In response to COVID-19, we maintained contact with clients via telephone and video calls to show continued support. In addition, we were supported by psychological staff from another project during this time. This staff offered their help to our clients.

 

Based on the insights and experiences gained during the project, what measures do you as most important when it comes to fostering the project’s aim? What are your recommendations in this context?

As mentioned earlier, health – especially mental health – plays a central role in employability.

From my perspective, it would be crucial to establish legal frameworks that explicitly allow job centre caseworkers to take a social-health-oriented approach. This should go hand in hand with raising awareness and providing training for staff to sensitise them to health-related issues.

Such measures could include workshops or continuing education. Furthermore, job centre staff should be granted more time to work with clients, with a more appropriate caseload ratio. Improved inter-agency networking and cooperation between service providers would also be essential.

 

What insights gained during the project do you consider as most important?

Communication and exchange proved to be key in working more effectively. The shared goal – to help our clients – must remain in focus.

In short: “Just talk to each other – keep the dialogue going!”

 

Looking back on the aims and trajectory of the ICh project, where do you see a need for further research and which research questions would you name in this context?

From my perspective, the work of professionals supporting people receiving Social Security Code II (Ger.: Sozialgesetzbuch (SGB)) benefits could be made much easier and more consistent with the creation of a central data platform. This would allow integration specialists to access relevant information for their work – including clients’ health status and current care situation – in one place.

I envision something similair to the electronic health record (ePA) used in healthcare but designed specifically for us as integration professionals.

Additionally, our clients with multiple health impairments would benefit greatly from a personalised budget, which they could use to access psychological or general medical support – especially if suitable specialists are not located nearby and longer travel distances are required.

As an alternative, or in addition, it would be beneficial to have specialist staff based directly at the Jobcentre who could support clients with mental health conditions on-site and via short, direct pathways.