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Support at any time of life

The Jewish Community Outreach Centre offers a wide range of support, from meals on wheels and socio-pedagogic assistance to psycho-social care for Holocaust survivors.

“The world stands upon three things: Torah, divine service and Tzedakah.”

The Outreach Centre offers support and advice for all members of our community and their families. There is no charge for these services, and our team members are bound by the strictest confidentiality.

The Outreach Centre places particular emphasis on psycho-social support and assistance for older or elderly community members, as well as people with special needs, and Holocaust survivors and their families. Our team is happy to make home visits, if preferred.

Another focal point of our work is consultations for Jewish migrants, mainly from the former USSR – but we often find other Jewish immigrant groups need support and advice as well. These can be families from neighbouring European countries, for instance, or Israeli families of European origin who have relocated to Frankfurt in recent years.

A third focus of the Outreach Centre is family consultations. We welcome families of any kind who find themselves in a difficult situation, for whatever reason, and need assistance or support. We’re happy to help.

We are also a key point of contact for teenagers and young adults in need of support, and offer special consultations and assistance for young Jewish people with special needs and for their families. In addition, we support families dealing with illness or disability.

In Jewish communities, outreach work and volunteering are closely linked, from help with homework or reading aloud, to assisting people of any age with special needs who require help, say, to go for a walk or attend a cultural event.

The Seniors’ Club offers a wide range of cultural activities and is part of our Outreach Centre.

Maimonides’ Eight Levels of Giving

The first and highest level of giving: Enabling a person to live without relying on others
Second: Giving anonymously to an unknown recipient
Third:  Giving anonymously to a known recipient
Fourth: Giving to an unknown recipient as a known benefactor
Fifth: Giving before being asked
Sixth: Giving after being asked
Seventh: Giving willingly but inadequately
Eighth: Giving unwillingly

OBJECTIVES OF JEWISH OUTREACH WORK

A top goal of our outreach work is integration

The Outreach Centre offers advice and support to ensure:

  • Every member of the Jewish Community can participate in community life
  • Every member of the Jewish Community and their families can participate in our community and society
  • Social isolation is tackled and prevented

  • To achieve these goals, we help people through difficult periods. We support those requiring care or affected by disability as they adjust their environments to suit their needs and integrate, and we counsel and advise individuals seeking a way out of a crisis.

    We assist our clients through consultations, counselling, support, cultural and networking services, and social contacts.

    CONSULTATIONS, COUNSELLING, SUPPORT

    These services are free of charge and tailored to the client’s needs

    We offer consultations for all members of the Jewish Community in Frankfurt and their immediate families, irrespective of income. Clients can choose where the appointment should take place: in the Outreach Centre, in their own home, or elsewhere, on neutral ground.

    Our services:
    We work with our clients to ascertain their needs and problems, and find a way of resolving them.

    We work with our clients to assess what resources are available to them and support them in finding a way to help themselves.

    In our outreach consultations, we find out what assistance the client is entitled to, and provide suitable support as they file their applications and receive the results of their assessments.

    We also offer help for people seeking accommodation, work or training opportunities, and with integration, language and advanced training courses. In addition, we offer specialist (non-legal) representation for those dealing with officials and authorities.

    Consultations for senior citizens: We help our older clients to ascertain what kind of support they need to continue leading an independent and self-determined life for as long as possible. We also offer advice and support on receiving care.

    Consultations for couples and families: We work with our clients to find out the root causes of their problems, and offer advice and support for those in difficult family situations. We also help children who are having trouble adjusting or are struggling at school. For families, we help find care for their children and offer advice if they are experiencing problems with their accommodation. If needed, we help them access sources of specialist support and remain a point of contact for them for as long as they need us.

    Consultations for teenagers and young adults: We support young people experiencing problems at school, college or work, in training or at home with their families.

    For individuals with special needs who live alone, we offer a range of support.

    We offer advice and counselling for people with mental health issues or learning difficulties and their families.

    Integration into the services of the community
    Fees for the I. E. Lichtigfeld School, After-School Club, Jewish youth centre and other manachot, senior citizens’ activities, family seminars and so on are funded by community members, who support them by paying a fair contribution based on their means.

    For many community members, our outreach team have become a point of contact for advice on life in general. We offer a particularly safe environment for unrestricted conversations.

    PSYCHO-SOCIAL AT YOUR OWN HOME

    Designed primarily for senior citizens and those with special needs

    Our services aim to offer active support for older clients and those with special needs as they seek to maintain their autonomy and improve their quality of life. Services are free of charge and tailored to the needs of the individual. They are designed for the benefit of everyone in our community and subject to the strictest confidentiality. A particular focus of our work is on Shoah survivors and their families. They are especially close to our hearts.

    Psycho-social support is not so much about care or domestic support but about additional advice and counselling, which clients can receive in the comfort of their own home. Even if clients are already benefiting from services provided via their care insurance, we continue to offer them the full spectrum of psycho-social support. The service is provided purely by the Outreach Centre of the Jewish Community.

    Our services include:

  • Regular home visits, if needed
  • Regular client contact
  • Phone consultations
  • Support for carers in the family
  • Needs assessments
  • Advice and support with the provision of assistance
  • Support with maintaining clients’ independence
  • Support with leisure activities
  • Support with participation in community life
  • Care quality assessments, if requested
  • Assistance in dealing with the authorities or important correspondence
  • Contact with family members, friends and neighbours

  • These services are part of Frankfurt’s Dignity with Age (Würde im Alter) programme and delivered by the Youth and Outreach Department of the City of Frankfurt. Our strict confidentiality and data protection remains unaffected by the partnership.

    INFORMATION CENTRE FOR MIGRANTS

    Support and advice for those relocating to Frankfurt from abroad

    We offer consultations, support, intercultural mediation, integration support, and crisis intervention for Jewish migrants and their families

    The Information Centre for Jewish Migrants was set up in response to the large influx of Jews that began in 1989 from countries of the former USSR. It is run by the Jewish Community in Frankfurt and reaches out not only to new immigrants from various countries of origin but also to Jewish migrants and their families who may have been in Germany for quite some time but still require help and advice to integrate. Our consultations are free of charge and strictly confidential.

    As a first point of contact, we offer consultations and/or extended support with:

  • Integration, taking into account the life situation of the individual concerned
  • The arrival and allocation process for migrants
  • Finding initial accommodation or a more permanent home
  • Integration into the community
  • Entitlements to services and legal rights
  • Schooling, education, training and professional integration
  • Crisis support
  • Contacting and working with specialist services, e.g. for young people, the elderly and those with special needs
  • Citizenship applications
  • Health issues and care (including trips to the doctor)
  • To help migrants integrate into the institutions of the Jewish Community, the information centre works with the Outreach Centre of the Jewish Community to:
  • Support their integration into the Jewish Community and its institutions, e.g. crèche, kindergarten, I. E. Lichtigfeld School, youth centre, rabbinate, Religious School, Seniors’ Club, Jewish Centre for the Elderly
  • Provide access to free psycho-social care and support from the Outreach Centre
  • Provide leisure activities for children, young people, families and senior citizens on Jewish holidays
  • Provide services for young Jewish adults with special needs
  • We also offer a special German course for older community members, teaching them all about the Jewish religion, history and culture – in German!

    Our services for migrants aim to:

  • Support their integration and active participation in community life and all other areas of social and cultural life
  • Strengthen their Jewish identity
  • Improve their chances of integrating successfully on the social and professional level
  • Encourage them to act on their own initiative and be aware of and use their own resources
  • Enable them to use other services and institutions independently and represent their own interests there
  • Encourage mutual acceptance in society
  • Jewish migrants have been quick to become active members of the Jewish Community and of society in the city. A key element of their success is their tremendous capacity for integration, which is also fundamental to the work of the Outreach Centre of the Jewish Community.

    SERVICES FOR SENIORS

    The Outreach Centre has even more ideas for the older generation!

    Each year the Outreach Centre and Seniors’ Club jointly organise a senior citizens’ excursion. But we also offer smaller-scale leisure activities for those who find a full day-trip too strenuous. To find out more, go to: www.jg-ffm.de/senioren/seniorenclub.

    SERVICES FOR PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

    Our community supports young people with special needs and their famil

    People with mental health issues or learning difficulties often require support to participate in society, be it with living accommodation, training and education, their professional lives or leisure activities.

    These individuals often depend on assistance to participate actively in Jewish community life. Integration is a reciprocal process that takes effort and care.

    With the help of young Jewish adults with special needs and their families, the Outreach Centre has set up a self-help group that meets regularly for Jewish celebrations and holidays as well as more general cultural and leisure activities.

    Here, too, our top priority is to strengthen the resources of our clients and help them live as independently as possible.

    Our services benefit not only the individuals concerned but also their families, who require intensive consultation and support from a trusted source.

    The Outreach Centre of the Jewish Community offers a broad spectrum of consultations for young adults with special needs, and has developed a number of leisure time activities. These include communal celebrations on Jewish festivals and holidays, but also other activities, such as days out in the countryside, for example, to stimulate the senses.

    contact

    Beratungsstelle der Jüdischen Gemeinde Frankfurt am Main K.d.ö.R.
    Westendstraße 43
    60325 Frankfurt am Main

     069 / 76 80 36-300
     069 / 76 80 36-349
     beratungsstelle@jg-ffm.de
     jg-ffm.de/de/soziales/beratungsstelle