Social Counselling / Psychotherapeutic Counselling / Student Financing Counselling

The Studierendenwerk provides advice and support in the following fields:

Social Counselling

• General social counselling
• Orientation and decision-making questions in all life situations
• Jobbing alongside academic studies
• Getting perspectives on the transition to a job
• Counselling for students with children (child care, maternity leave, social benefits)
• Studying with a disability / handicap: advice on social benefits, offers of help, hardship regulations, compensation for disadvantages at university
• International students: Financial questions and ensuring financial security (right of residence, compulsory insurance, etc.)
• Social benefits in general (housing benefit, child supplement, family insurance, etc.)

Psychotherapeutic / psychosocial counselling

• Reorientation and finding one's way around,
• Self-learning,
• Adequate time management,
• Confidently mastering exams
• Orient oneself in a new living environment
• Personal life crises

Student finance counselling

• Counselling on loans, credits, scholarships,
• Free meals in our canteen,
• Allocation of the KfW student loan,
• Cash grants,
• Financial aid fund
• MensaKids (free food for children of students)

Student bridging aid

• Project management
• Application processing
• Taking over the difficult cases as key user
• Continued counselling for cases that did not show pandemic related hardship but still had financial problems.

Strengthening of counselling urgently needed!
Not only since the pandemic have we been pleading for a strengthening of student counselling - especially for foreign students - in order to make educational paths more straightforward and to eliminate problems before they jeopardise academic success.
For us, counselling therefore has a very great economic relevance in addition to the clear human factor. We are sure that the financial resources of good, accessible and professional counselling are much more economical than the costs of a discontinued study. Not to mention the unsuccessful educational careers of students who drop out. As early as November 2019, we approached our ministry with the request for a budget title for social affairs / counselling / international affairs, as is already practised in other federal states.

When the effects of the pandemic were added in March 2020, it quickly became clear to us that counselling would become an even more important part of the Studierendenwerk's work and also that the Studierendenwerk's own, very small, financial resources in the area of emergency financial aid would not be sufficient.
As early as March 2020, we therefore asked the state government for a financial aid pledge for the students in Landau, Ludwigshafen, Worms and Germersheim and expressed our solidarity with the demands of the Landau AStA in its "Open Letter to the State Government", as the financial collapse was foreseeable for many students.
In April, we backed this up with our own Petition to the Ministry, supported by all affiliated universities, asking for an increase in emergency funds.

Counselling takes over bridging aid for students.
Our counselling is always holistic and we try to include personal, social and economic aspects equally in our work. Experience shows that the problems of those seeking advice are very often a combination of all three areas.
Consequently, from mid-June 2020, the Counselling Department has taken over the lead in processing student bridging assistance from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the Studierendenwerk. An additional 3,384 applications were processed in the Studierendenwerk and bridging aid amounting to 1,455,900 euros was awarded to students from Landau, Ludwigshafen, Neustadt, Worms and Germersheim by the 31st of December 2020. Of course, the unplanned work package could only be accomplished with the support of other departments and colleagues in the building. At times, up to 16 staff members were involved in the processing of cases in order to be able to provide the students with bridging assistance as quickly as possible. At no time did it take more than 3-4 weeks for the money to arrive in the applicants' accounts for fully submitted applications.

In the run-up to the distribution of the student bridging aid, we had neither expected the mass of applications nor the intensity of the work. Behind every application was a personal crisis situation and individual ways had to be found in countless emails and phone calls with applicants. Especially international students and students with structural poverty, for whom the pandemic-related bridging aid does not apply, asked us for alternative ways out of the crisis. These cases required particularly intensive counselling.
An additional complicating factor for us was that the Studierendenwerke in Rhineland-Palatinate are not in charge of administering BAföG and therefore we did not have any information from this area when processing applications to be able to check their overall financial situation.

Counselling increased exponentially
It is not worth comparing the counselling figures of this year with those of previous years, as 2020 was a special year in every respect. However, counselling figures and students problems have increased exponentially.
Our own expenditure in aid funds for students in need tripled in 2020 from 4350 euros to 13,200 euros.
In November 2020, the head of the department - Mrs Barbara Doll - went on parental leave. Since the position could not be filled until 01.01.2021 as a parental leave replacement, the Kita and Communication departments took over the work of the department on a provisional basis for the transitional period. Kathrin Humbert was the contact person for all counselling issues in the 3rd quarter and handed over the task to the new head - Manfred Kleinecke - on January 1st of 2021.

Conclusion
Our conclusion for the 2020 financial year is: Counselling - as also discussed in recent years - has to play a much more prominent role than in previous years. The social security systems for successful study must be scrutinised. In our opinion, it is not acceptable that there is more and more structural poverty - especially among international students - from which we as a Studierendenwerk cannot offer any way out. We demand an improvement here, a separate counselling position in the Rhineland-Palatinate state budget and the clear political will to improve the situation in the long term.
We are very pleased that the bridging aid has been extended into the new year, because - even if the vaccination campaign picks up speed - the economic consequences for the students will be felt for a long time to come. As of today, it is not clear whether the traditional student sideline businesses - such as gastronomy - will recover quickly and completely from the pandemic.
It was very positive for us that the Studierendenwerk found viable solutions at all times during the financial year, despite the great challenges, and that the counselling department was able to call on many helping hands in-house. So our counselling can definitely also handle pandemic...