Summary

• Author: Applica, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (European Commission), Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
• Pages: 31-32

The Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) in Germany

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Summary

The Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) was set up in 2014 to alleviate

the worst forms of poverty in the EU and to promote the social inclusion of the most

deprived persons. The total EU budget is EUR 3.8 billion for seven years (2014-2020) with

a maximum EU co-financing rate of 85%. All Member States sub mitted an operational

programme (OP), either for 'food and/or basic material assistance' (also referred to as 'OP

I') or for 'social inclusion of the most deprived persons' ( 'OP II'). 24 Member States

implemented OP I programmes and four implemented OP II. One of the latter was

Germany, which specifically focused its OP on newly arrived EU citizens, in practice mostly

from eastern and sou th-eastern Europe, and their children. The German OP was chosen

for this case study as it covers one of the four groups of children targeted by the

Preparatory Action to explore the potential scope of a Child Guarantee.

The German FEAD (‘Europäischer Hilfsfonds für die am stärksten benachteiligten Personen

in Deutschland’з or EHAP (European support fund for the most deprived in Germany)) has

a total budget of EUR 93 million, of which EUR 79 million is from the EU.

The German FEAD has three specific objectives (SO); the focus here is on the two strands

of SO2, which is about improving access to parental support for parents of migrant children

of pre-school age, and improving access by the children themselves to early education and

social inclusion opportunities.

The main focus is on helping recently arrived EU citizens and their families, as well as

homeless people, to access the regular assistance system such as migration counselling,

medical services, socio-psychiatric services, youth welfare offices and support services for

the homeless27. In this sense, it can be seen to have a ‘bridgin g function’.

A particular focus is on ensuring that migrant children get access to early childhood

education and kindergartens. A major challenge is ensuring that chil dren who are close to

school age get a place in a kindergarten so that they can learn at least rudimentary German

before starting school28. Referral to a kindergarten is also one of the most common results.

In the first three years of the programme, two thirds of the fun ds were used to support

families.

FEAD support in practice takes the form of funding the salaries of counsellors/outreach

workers in existing or new beneficiaries (public bodies or non-profit organisations) to

support the integrati on of disadvantaged newly arrived EU ci tizens and homeless people.

These are mainly social workers with language skills in Bulgarian, Romanian and/or

Turkish.

The FEAD also funds co-operation between the partner organisations and the regular

assistance system and training courses, for example in respect of intercultural

competencies and non-discrimination, for the municip alities and other stakeholders.

84 projects were selected for support in the first round for a period of 3 years and 67

projects in the second round for a p eriod of two years. As a result, the funds are almost

totally allocated. In case of returns of funds it might be possible to give a prolongation for

some projects. Some of the projects from the f irst round received further funding in the

second round, but there are also new projects.

In terms of reaching its targets, the FEAD in Germany is a very successful OP. It has

reached si gnificantly more participants than pla nned and also h elped them transition to

other services, in particular kindergartens and healthcare, wi th higher success rates t han

expected. For example, the overall number of parents of migrant children counselled under

SO2a was 9,956 (latest figures up to November 2018). Out of these, 8,565 then made use

of an existin g counselling or support service for parents. This was a success rate of 86%

compared with a target of 50 %. Similarly, the overall number of m igrant children of

27 http://www.bmas.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2015/projektideen-FEAD.html.

28 European Commission (2018b).