School Assistance Hanover: We see you

A school companion is an individual integration support for children and adolescents with special educational needs. They support students in everyday school life to enable them to participate in lessons at a mainstream or special school. The guiding principle of helping people to help themselves is always at the forefront.

The support is aimed at children with mental, intellectual, or physical disabilities. This includes, for example, children on the autism spectrum, with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), severe behavioral problems, or physical limitations. Often, these students can no longer adequately follow regular classroom activities without one-on-one support. The overarching goal is always to stabilize and successfully manage school attendance despite these individual challenges.

The incurred costs are fully covered by state funding agencies, completely independent of parental income. Depending on the type of diagnosed disability and legislation, either the local youth welfare office or the social affairs department of the Hanover region is responsible.

The application process always begins with the official application to your responsible funding agency. For this, current specialist medical or child psychiatric reports are absolutely necessary, which prove the corresponding diagnosis beyond doubt. In addition, the office usually requests a detailed report from the school describing the specific pedagogical support needs in everyday lessons. Sometimes, an observation appointment by an evaluator takes place directly in the respective class as a supplement. As soon as all documents have been fully reviewed, you will receive a written notice of approval. With this legally valid document, you can then immediately contact a service provider like us to plan the practical deployment of personnel.

The companion primarily provides practical, manual, and care support directly on site. For example, they help with spatial orientation, structure the child's workspace, and accompany them safely through turbulent break times. In emotional crises or acute stress situations, the assistant offers a protected retreat and helps with regulation. Pedagogical teaching tasks or the primary teaching of lesson content, on the other hand, explicitly do not belong to their legal field of activity. Instead, the specialist focuses entirely on individual compensation for disadvantages and the promotion of social participation.

No, a school companion is aimed purely at coping with everyday school life and inclusion, whereas classic tutoring serves exclusively to improve academic grades and impart knowledge.

Yes, a confirmed specialist medical or child and adolescent psychiatric diagnosis is the absolute basic prerequisite for the official application. Without this medical proof, the funding agencies cannot officially determine the individual need within the framework of integration assistance. Only the written diagnosis opens the way for financing and the provision of the appropriate specialist.

A trusting relationship between the child, parents, and companion is absolutely crucial for the long-term success of the measure. Therefore, you naturally have a major say in the final personnel selection with us. After an initial internal matching, we organize a non-binding get-to-know-you meeting to check whether the proverbial "chemistry" is right. Only when all sides have a thoroughly positive feeling will the selected specialist be permanently assigned to your child.

The approved duration of a school companion service is always based on the very individual support needs of the respective child. Mostly, the very first approval notices cover a manageable period of one school half-year or a complete school year. In good time before this set deadline expires, a joint support plan meeting is held to critically evaluate whether the child still needs the support. The parents, the school, the funding agency, and of course we, as the provider of the school companion service, take part in this important meeting. If the need persists, a formal extension application must be submitted to the offices early on. In the long term, however, the measure is always designed to gradually increase the student's independence in the school system. The ultimate goal of inclusion is that, in the best case, the companion eventually makes themselves redundant.

Accompaniment on multi-day class trips or school excursions is generally feasible, but must be applied for in advance as a special need with the responsible office in good time. If a corresponding cost commitment is available, our specialist will of course also actively support your child outside the regular school building.