Persönliches Budget for an au pair – a funding option for families?
“Persönliches Budget? I've never heard of that.” (Translated)
We hear this again and again from families looking for support for their child with a disability.
Yet behind this initially rather unwieldy term can lie an interesting option.
The Persönliches Budget (a German benefit paid to you as money you manage yourself) is meant to give people with disabilities more self-determination over how, and by whom, necessary support is provided.
For parents of a child with a disability, it is therefore worth taking a closer look at this topic.
What actually is the Persönliches Budget?
The Persönliches Budget is not an additional social benefit.
It is a different way of receiving certain benefits you are already entitled to.
Instead of a funding body exclusively organising or financing a specific benefit in kind or service, the entitled person can receive a budget and use it to organise the agreed support themselves.
For minor children, parents can apply for a Persönliches Budget on behalf of their entitled child.
The aim behind this is greater self-determination:
What support do we need? Who should provide it? And how can it be organised to fit our everyday family life?
What does this have to do with an au pair?
For families with a child with a disability, benefits for social participation and assistance services (Eingliederungshilfe/Assistenzleistungen) can, for example, play a role.
This can involve, among other things, support in coping with and organising everyday life, or participation in community life.
And this is exactly the point at which families keep asking us:
Can the support provided by our au pair be taken into account as part of a Persönliches Budget?
This cannot be answered the same way for every family.
What matters is always the individual need for participation the child has, which benefit is approved, and what is laid down in the target agreement for the Persönliches Budget.
That is why an au pair should not simply be taken on with the assumption that their costs will then be covered by the Persönliches Budget.
The right path begins beforehand.
The first step: finding the responsible funding body
Who is responsible depends on the individual case and on the benefit applied for.
For benefits under Eingliederungshilfe (integration assistance for people with disabilities), the responsible Eingliederungshilfe provider may, for example, be in charge. How this is organised regionally varies within Germany.
For children and young people with a mental disability or one that is threatened, the Jugendamt (local youth welfare office) or the public youth welfare provider may instead be responsible.
Other rehabilitation providers may also play a role, depending on the benefit needed.
You therefore do not need to know every area of responsibility in German social law before your first conversation.
What matters first is the key phrase:
“Persönliches Budget for participation benefits.” (Translated)
What does your child actually want to achieve with it?
The Persönliches Budget is not primarily about who is to be paid.
At its centre is the individual need of the child.
Where does the child need support?
Is it, for example, about being able to take part in leisure activities, participating in social life, or being accompanied more independently in everyday life?
Only from this need does it become clear which benefit could even be considered.
This is an important distinction.
The application therefore does not simply read:
“We would like our au pair to be paid.” (Translated)
At the centre, rather, is the necessary support and participation of the child – and then the question of how this support can be organised within a Persönliches Budget.
You do not have to work through this alone
Anyone dealing for the first time with Eingliederungshilfe, assistance services, funding bodies and the Persönliches Budget can quickly feel as though they would need their own degree course for it.
Fortunately, there is support for this.
In Germany, there is the Ergänzende unabhängige Teilhabeberatung (EUTB, a free, independent counselling service on rehabilitation and participation) – EUTB® for short.
These counselling centres support people with disabilities and their relatives with questions relating to rehabilitation and participation.
The advice is independent, free of charge, and offered nationwide.
There, you can, for example, discuss:
- which benefits might in principle be considered for your child,
- who might be responsible in your region,
- how the Persönliches Budget works, and
- how you can go about submitting an application.
Especially if you do not yet know at all which authority to approach, an EUTB® can be a good first port of call.
The Persönliches Budget also means responsibility
The greater freedom of the Persönliches Budget also comes with responsibility.
Together with the responsible funding body, it is set out which need the budget may be used for and which goals are to be achieved with it.
The money is therefore not freely available for all the costs of everyday family life.
That is why it is important to clarify beforehand exactly whether, and to what extent, the desired support from an au pair can be used within the approved benefit.
If in doubt, have the specific intended use confirmed by the responsible funding body.
Our tip from Besondere Sterne
If your child has a disability and you are considering an au pair as additional support, it is worth at least having the Persönliches Budget checked out as a possibility.
Contact your responsible funding body for this, or first get free advice from an EUTB®.
In doing so, do not just describe that you would like to host an au pair.
Describe, above all:
Where does your child need support, and what participation should this make possible?
Because that is exactly what the Persönliches Budget is about.
Not about giving families some sum of money to spend freely.
But about giving people with disabilities more ways to shape the support they are entitled to more individually and with more self-determination.
Whether, and to what extent, an au pair can be included should always be clarified and agreed individually with the responsible funding body.
