Social counselling / psychological counselling / student finance counselling

Mr. Kleinecke: How important is good counselling in all life situations for studying?
Every educational career is started with the aim of studying successfully. That is, to graduate and build one's way into their own professional existence.
But a course of study is only successful if it is also completed. Psychological, financial and social crises are almost always the biggest enemy of this goal.
And these problems are not annoying side effects, but essential steps on the way to successful socialisation in one's own life.
Our counselling aims to prevent small problems from becoming big problems along the way and to prevent big problems from jeopardising our students' goal in life.
Good, accessible and fast counselling is therefore the best antidote to failed educational careers. By the way, it saves the university system a lot of money if students really achieve their goal and don't drop out.
Counselling is therefore win-win-win for the students themselves, for the universities and for the economy, which is in urgent need of skilled workers.
The phrase "shortage of skilled workers" will soon replace the word "pandemic" in the frequency with which it is mentioned. So everything must be done to ensure that as many skilled workers as possible reach their destination. And that won't work without counselling.

What did counselling look like in times of the pandemic?
I firmly believe that counselling needs the interpersonal one-on-one. Problems can be clarified much better in a face-to-face conversation than by mail, telephone and video call. We did everything we could to ensure that our students could come to us even during the pandemic and in compliance with all hygiene regulations if they wanted to. Of course, this was not always possible and then we also resorted to modern, digital ways.
The vast majority of consultations were therefore face to face. This was also due to the fact that interpersonal contacts in the Corona period were enormously important for the students who could not return home.

What were the most important issues for them in 2021?
Loneliness, problems with parents, partner, lack of connection to everyday life, learning and work problems, exam nerves, financial crises especially for international students in connection with residence law issues or also for single parents, problems with labour law and questions about financing studies and over-indebtedness.
2021 was a laboratory. Like under a burning glass, one could see how vulnerable the university system can be. This already challenging time for young people was overlaid with yet another disruptive layer. So it was like peeling an onion: you often had to peel away the individual layers to get to the real problem.
But with the bridging aid for students, we had a very good instrument to at least alleviate the financial pressure a little. We gave more than 2,550,300 million euros to students. At the beginning of the student bridging aid, we had only expected a mid-five-digit figure. For this, we would also like to thank the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which quickly, uncomplicatedly and technically well implemented this financial rescue parachute for our students. It was really urgently necessary and existentially important!

Did you have sufficient support for their counselling issues?
No. Although the bridging aid has cushioned many things financially, our demand for a state title in the Rhineland-Palatinate budget for counselling, social affairs and international affairs remained unheard. Counselling only works with counsellors. And there is simply not enough money for them. Perhaps also because the benefits for the economy mentioned at the beginning are still not seen or sufficiently valued politically. I also argue that good and adequately staffed counselling does not cost money, but saves money significantly.
Comparable student unions in other federal states are in a much better position here.

What was easy during this time, what was difficult?
Nothing was easy, but with such a good team we were able to master our tasks. However, you can't do it on a long-term basis at this level. The "crisis of counselling" at and for universities must not be allowed to perpetuate itself. The pandemic has shown that quite clearly. It also gets really difficult when four semester students all come to campus at once as "freshmen". For what will soon be the fifth semester, socialisation in their own student life has not even begun. A four-semester wave of first-year counselling students is rolling towards us. I expect that we will see this in the figures next year.

Where does the Studierendenwerk stand well in counselling?
Our holistic thinking is one of our strengths. It turns out in our counselling that it is almost never just one component that needs help, but that it is almost always a combination of problems.
It is clear to us that sustainably effective solutions to problems for students always arise from looking at all areas, i.e. the social, psychological and financial situation of our students. That is why we also focus on classifying the overall situation of the person seeking advice in an initial interview and - according to the principle of helping people to help themselves - defining a sensible course in the situation. Only in a second step do we refer our advice seekers to the right contact in our counselling network if we cannot help ourselves.
Well-founded knowledge both in social law, immigration law, all financial matters as well as psychosocial counselling competence for students in crisis situations form a unique characteristic of our counselling. Here we are the ideal complementary partner to internal university counselling.

Where does counselling stand badly?
We in Rhineland-Palatinate - unlike other colleges in Germany - have no insight into student financing through BAföG. This made financial counselling difficult, because it was very hard for us to decide what the students' financial situation actually was.
Counselling only works if we have the time to get to the bottom of the real problem. Only then are solutions viable and meaningful. But we have been lacking time - and staff - for years. Our service offer alone extends over 5 locations, from Germersheim and Ludwigshafen (including Neustadt an der Weinstraße) to Landau and Worms. This ties up time resources, especially if we want to do justice to all the locations and the students on site.

The time after Corona - what do you think about it?
I don't think much about the pandemic and the time after for my work. Of course I'm happy when one day a very important stress factor for our advice seekers and also for our team will be gone. But actually, what was true before the pandemic and what has already been mentioned here several times still applies: If you want good educational careers, you must not neglect good counselling. I will continue to fight for this.
What we should not forget is that the Long Covid epidemic will also bring us an increase in psychological counselling. That is already becoming apparent.