Apply for integration assistance for children and young people with mental disabilities

Contact the relevant youth welfare office with your problems. The counsellor will decide in a personal meeting whether

• Integration assistance is an option for your child or
• other forms of help would be more suitable.

The decisive factor is whether the disorder is actually a mental disability. The Youth Welfare Office will obtain an opinion from one of the following specialists for clarification:

• A doctor specialising in child and adolescent psychiatry or psychotherapy
• Child and adolescent psychotherapist or child and adolescent psychotherapist
• Medical doctor or psychotherapist with specialised experience in the field of mental disorders in children and adolescents.

Healthcare professionals recognise a deviation from age-typical mental health. These are primarily paediatric and adolescent psychiatrists.

The task of social work is to assess the impairment of social participation. The youth welfare organisation ultimately decides on the classification of the person, i.e

• whether and in what form integration assistance is granted and
• whether other assistance may be necessary.

If the assistance is approved, all parties involved jointly draw up an assistance plan. Among other things, this sets out

• which goals are to be achieved through the integration assistance and
• how long the assistance will be provided.

Note: The duration of integration assistance depends on the severity of the mental disability. It therefore varies from case to case.