"Their Wishes Are the Most Important Thing". Clemens Kasper about the new federal model project "Job Budget"

Jointly with the so called Personal Budget the German model project “Job Budget” started in January 2008 and will run till the end of 2011. The aim: Organisations, representation of interests and workshops for people with handicap from all over Germany want to support disabled people in getting work on the general job market. REHACARE.de talked to Dr. M. Clemens Kasper, head of division for the sections work and law in the federal association for workshops for the handicapped (BAG WfbM), about the Job Budget.

01.07.2008

Dr. Clemens Kasper © Kasper

REHACARE.de: Mr. Kasper, German workshops for people with disability have the juridical order to support the handicapped workshop employees in the transition to the general job market anyway. What is new about the Job budget?
Clemens Kasper: It is new that the handicapped employee can choose a service provider who searches a job on the general job market for him by using his personal budget. Therefore he can search a job without direct help of the workshop. If he decides on the Job Budget, workshop and service provider work together. Their offers are complementary.

REHACARE.de: Who takes part in the project?
Clemens Kasper: On the one hand, the professional services - these are different integration organisations and self-determination centres. On the other hand there are different workshops near the professional services. Besides, the project is supported by means of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

REHACARE.de: How does the job search of the professional service expire?
Kasper: First the services go to the workshops and introduce the project to the staff and the handicapped people. If a workshop employee then wishes to take up the services of the external professional service, it will make a contract about the extent of the services with the workshop, and then it searches a suitable job.

REHACARE.de: And after budget users have been placed, are they left alone?
Kasper: No. Those who take up the job budget are supported by a job coach of the professional service.


REHACARE.de: And what happens if the job does not figure?
Kasper: Then the employee can go back to the workshop anyway.

REHACARE.de: What is paid by the Personal Budget?
Kasper: From the personal budget the cost amount which is necessary for the placement is paid to the service provider and to the workshops.

REHACARE.de: Has somebody already gotten a job with the Job Budget?
Kasper: Up to now nobody has been placed. The project has to establish itself first of all, this will take some time.

REHACARE.de: How do disabled people’s benefit from being able to search a job by the help of a service provider?
Kasper: A big advantage is the growing independence of the handicapped people who work in workshops. Their wishes are the most important thing.

* With the personal budget handicapped people can receive an amount of money instead of services or material support. With it they can decide on their own, for example, which people or which services are to help them in the everyday life. To get the budget, one has to make an application with the rehabilitation bearer.

The interview was conducted by Natascha Mörs

REHACARE.de

- Click here for the official side of the Job Budget: www.jobbudget.org