Description
Description
The goal of integration assistance is to prevent or mitigate a disability. If your child has a disability or is at risk of developing one, you may be eligible for additional benefits to cover childcare at a daycare center. To qualify, an individual need for support must be determined.
Your child can be cared for in an inclusive group with children with and without disabilities, or alone in a group with children without disabilities (individual integration). Additional services are available in nursery groups (children under 3 years of age), preschool groups (children 3 years and older), and after-school care groups (from the start of school until the age of 14).
If a child has specific special needs, they may also be enrolled in a special education kindergarten for children with intellectual or physical disabilities, a speech therapy kindergarten, or a special education kindergarten for children with hearing impairments.
Speech therapy kindergartens and special education kindergartens for children with hearing impairments provide care for children with a significant speech or hearing impairment that is not merely temporary—typically after the age of 4. There, they receive both special education and medical-therapeutic services.
Special education kindergartens, speech therapy kindergartens, and special education kindergartens for children with hearing impairments specialize in supporting and caring for children with disabilities. They do not always offer integrated care for children with and without disabilities. If the provider of integration assistance determines that your child has an individual need for support, it will cover the costs of the services. Your income and assets may be taken into account.
In a speech therapy kindergarten or a special education kindergarten for children with hearing impairments, special education and medical-therapeutic services are provided together as “speech therapy” (an interdisciplinary comprehensive service). The basis for this is Lower Saxony’s “Agreement on Special Education Support and Medical Therapies in Speech Therapy Kindergartens.” The local integration assistance agency determines whether your child has a need for these services—in consultation with the Hearing, Speech, and Vision Advisory Service of the Lower Saxony State Office for Social Affairs, Youth, and Family.