Germany showcases protection scheme for pregnant women in emergency situations

Newsletter 2010-1

Publication date : 2010-04-26

With one in five children still exposed to the risk of poverty, reducing child poverty remains one of the major challenges faced by the European Union and it is no coincidence that 2010 is the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.

In Germany, a scheme was set up in 1984, focusing specifically on assisting pregnant women in difficult situations (such as no or low income, domestic violence, or single parenthood) to prepare financially for the birth of their child.

Under the programme, which is run by the Federal Foundation Mother and Child, women are entitled to payments averaging around €600 in order to help them cover costs relating to their children’s clothing and care needs. 

Funds are not paid out directly by the Federal Foundation but channelled through 11 Länderbased foundations and social welfare organisations. Land bodies cover their own administrative and personnel costs, ensuring all federal funding goes directly to the intended beneficiaries. They may also set up their own fundraising systems to extend support to other people in need that are not eligible under the federal programme.

The German scheme seeks to be as non-bureaucratic as possible and comes on top of any social welfare payments or institutional unemployment benefits, which often take quite some time to materialise. On top of financial assistance, it also aims to provide pregnant women with nonfinancial support and counselling via its local pregnancy information centres.

With a minimum annual budget of €92 million, allocated by the federal government (€97 million in 2009), the Federal Foundation currently provides assistance to roughly one in five pregnant women. And, with the share of German children at risk of poverty now standing at just 14%, Germany is one of the EU’s best performers in the field of child poverty.

The Peer Review that took place in Berlin on 21 and 22 January 2010 thus provided a useful opportunity for the Federal Foundation Mother and Child and the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth to share their experience with experts from neighbouring countries, while also identifying areas for improvement in the German policy.

In addition to the host country, six Peer countries – Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Serbia – participated in the Review, providing information on their own national systems. EUROCHILD, the Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union (COFACE) and the European Social Network (ESN), as well as a thematic expert from the Netherlands and a European Commission official also took part in the meeting.

Lessons learned

Following detailed discussions over one and a half days, as well as two site visits, there was a general agreement that the Federal Foundation is successful in meeting its fundamental objectives.

Nevertheless, participants felt the scheme could contribute further to the wider goal of active inclusion by also taking into account other objectives, such as labour market integration, which can sometimes conflict with parental support objectives.

With this in mind, it was suggested that the Federal Foundation could play a greater role in empowering women who seek out its assistance and in helping them to develop their potential to participate actively in society. Indeed, although one of the Foundation’s objectives is to “open doors” and to guide women towards a range of assistance and self-help opportunities that might otherwise have remained closed or unknown to them, little attention is currently paid to evaluating the effectiveness of this strand of the scheme in terms of improving beneficiaries’ overall quality of life.

What’s more, some participants pointed to the absence of checks surrounding the payments made to beneficiaries. While the Federal Foundation accepted there was a risk of some misuse, it maintained it is more important for the system to be flexible and nonbureaucratic – a view widely shared by peer reviewers.

Asides from these considerations, the early intervention philosophy promoted by the scheme was considered a particularly strong feature of the German system. Indeed, it was thought that the fact that counselling bodies, such as the “Donum Vitae” association visited by participants, are encouraged to become involved, free of charge well before birth, can help to reduce the chances of a child being abandoned later and to bridge the financial gap that can occur before child allowances are received – a particularly important consideration in the current economic climate.

In fact, peer reviewers believed that local counselling bodies could play a broader role, namely contributing to policymaking and to developing innovative solutions for specific vulnerable groups (such as the Roma or teenage parents), thanks to the extensive experience they have acquired.

http://www.peer-review-social-inclusion.eu/peer-reviews/2009/federal-foundation-mother-and-child-for-pregnant-women-in-emergency-situations