MY FOLDER - Welcome to Saxony

Starting position/challenge

In the summer of 2015, it became clear in the Dresden job centre that the integration of refugees resulted in too many friction losses due to unexplained responsibilities. It became clear that there was a lack of transitional management between different institutions, and the overall process was inadequate. Queries of personal data and qualifications were carried out on several occasions to protect private data and for other reasons. Therefore, information from one participating (counselling) location was not available to the next, so that the refugees were partly sent “in a circle” to various institutions without their needs being covered. In order to strengthen the information flow in a simple and pragmatic way, the idea of creating a file folder was created by the collaboration between the Dresden job centre, the Dresden state capital and the Network IQ Saxony. It was intended to be a folder that refugees bring to every appointment and to each counselling office and in which he or she can keep all the important documents, which are then systematically at hand for each appointment with a counsellor or consultant.

Implementation

The three partners worked hand in hand on the implementation. The regional arrangement of the tab sheets was prepared in several meetings. The city of Dresden contributed the texts, and to simplify handling, they were formulated in German and in English at the same time. They include short and simple explanations on the ten subjects of “arriving in Dresden”, “money”, “living”, “German”, “children and family”, “work”, “vocational education and study”, “health”, “counselling and help”, and “additional documents”. Moreover, the respective contact information of various institutions as well as contact persons are listed in each subject folder, which are provided with a QR code for faster retrieval on the Internet. After completing the first copies, the concept was presented in a larger circle, in particular to social workers. They were asked to distribute the folders in their region. Depending on the interest of the cities and counties, the folder covers were filled in cooperation with the Network IQ Saxony. The local participants contributed the tab texts and took over the packaging of the folders. The Network IQ Saxony delivered the layout and made sure to use simple language for the tab texts and coordinated regionalisation, print and distribution.

Summary

MY FOLDER should become an integral part of all counselling situations. For this purpose, it is distributed to refugees by social workers in the second conversation. But the folders can also be distributed by the employment agency, job centre, social welfare office, or Network IQ. Currently, the folders go to refugees, but they are useful for all immigrants.