Authors: Daniel Bartel (Anti-Discrimination Association Germany - Antidiskriminierungsverband Deutschland), Prof. Dr. Annita Kalpaka (Hamburg University of Applied Sciences), in cooperation with Eben Louw and Philipp Fode, commissioned by the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency Year of publication: 2022

Brief overview

The study aims at recording the status quo of the German anti-discrimination counselling landscape. This includes information on work bases, the geographical distribution of centres and their related resources. Based on the results, a concept is being developed to expand the national counselling structure to achieve a nationwide coverage.

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Main results

Status quo of the anti-discrimination counselling landscape in Germany

• There are currently about 100 anti-discrimination counselling centres across Germany. In terms of figures, this means that more than four rural and urban districts are sharing one counselling centre.
• The counselling centres are small and only have very limited resources. On average, a counselling centre has less than one full-time equivalent and a budget of less than 100,000 euros.
• For the most part, there is a lack of stability and sustainability when it comes to the funding of counselling centres. Thus, three in four centres report that only up to 60 per cent of the demand for counselling is met on average. Only one in ten centres is able to plan for more than two years ahead.
• Throughout Germany, this means that there are fewer than 100 full-time equivalent positions in total. On average, this corresponds to one full-time equivalent counsellor position for 922,000 inhabitants.
• The counselling centres are unevenly distributed across the country. Most counselling centres are concentrated in metropolitan areas, while there are only few support services available in rural areas. Some federal states (Länder) offer extensive services, while there are only few or even no counselling centres at all in other Länder.
• A major part of counselling work is performed by non-governmental organisations. They are predominantly funded by the Länder.
• The anti-discrimination counselling centres are staffed with highly qualified professionals. Counsellors have degrees in social science, law and liberal arts and for the most part have area-specific additional qualifications.
• Anti-discrimination counselling is a rapidly evolving but still young field.

Anti-discrimination counselling services in Germany are not provided nationwide.

The concept of nationwide anti-discrimination counselling structures

Purpose of the counselling services

A nationwide anti-discrimination counselling structure is the sum total of, and interplay between, specialised anti-discrimination counselling centres. These counselling centres are to be geared towards a joint and clearly defined counselling mandate.

The work of the anti-discrimination counselling centres includes:

• psychosocial assistance
• counselling on out-of-court and legal ways of action
• assistance and active support during disputes with the party responsible for discrimination
• making discrimination visible and developing general interventions

The work of anti-discrimination counselling centres should be based on expert standards. Those standards are suitable for qualified anti-discrimination counselling (advd, 2009) as they constitute a common basis.

Altogether, counselling services should be provided close to home and cover all relevant grounds of discrimination and/or power relations and all spheres of life. Such services can be delivered by a single counselling centre focusing on various target groups and spheres of life or by a combination of complementary counselling centres focusing on specific target groups and/or fields of life. From an expert point of view, both ways are acceptable.

Scope, resource requirements and distribution of counselling services

The scope of anti-discrimination counselling services offered should be determined based on the number of staff available for counselling. This figure should match the number of inhabitants looking for counselling. For nationwide counselling, there should be no less than one full-time equivalent counsellor position for 100,000 to 200,000 inhabitants. At the same time, it should be the objective to have a minimum of two counsellors per counselling centre.

The counselling centre’s need for resources should be based on the number of counsellor positions and include personnel costs and appropriate resources for material costs, fees and overheads. Based on calculations in connection with the study, the resources needed currently amount to 108,000 euros per full-time counselling position and per year.

Anti-discrimination counselling centres should be spread out nationwide to ensure counselling close to home. Here the distribution of centres should reflect the social and administrative breakdown of the federal territory into urban and rural districts. Accordingly, a counselling centre’s geographical coverage should be geared towards the size of a rural or urban district.

Scope of the counselling services

As anti-discrimination counselling services represent affected persons’ interests, the professional independence of these bodies should be guaranteed structurally.

Besides specialised anti-discrimination counselling centres, low-threshold support services require a broad network of centres providing initial counselling and counselling referrals that detect and name discrimination and encourage affected persons to make use of support and, if necessary, refer them to specialised anti-discrimination counselling centres.

For nationwide counselling services of comparable quality, cooperation of stakeholders at federal, Land and municipal level is needed and a binding clarification of responsibilities and roles. To this end, the stakeholders and structures already in place in Germany in this field should be used.

Developing and maintaining continuous, reliable and high-quality counselling services requires a stable and predictable framework. Anti-discrimination counselling needs should be fully funded and the funding should be financially secured at least in the medium term (5 years). The funding of counselling services needs to be enshrined in law.

Irrespective of the structure coordinating and administering the services, an appropriate federal central specialist structure for anti-discrimination counselling should be ensured, building on already existing services.

Anti-discrimination counselling work should be evaluated on a regular basis. Five years are an appropriate time frame to do so. It is recommended that key performance indicators regarding counselling activities and the development of counselling structures through coordinating bodies are collected and published periodically. This can also be done in cooperation with the federal central specialist structures.

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Options for action

• The authors recommend expanding current counselling structures on a national average by a factor of 5 to 10 and to systematically roll them out. In the authors’ opinion, it is only then that there will be nationwide anti-discrimination counselling services that everyone in Germany can access and use, irrespective of the Land and the region people live in.
• In this context, the aim is to have one full-time counselling position for every 100,000 to 200,000 inhabitants.
• In order to ensure the quality of the individual counselling services, specialist structures across counselling centres and a systematic strengthening of structures for initial counselling and counselling referrals continue to be recommended.
• Owing to the federal system, technical cooperation between the Federal Government and the Länder is needed to systematically expand counselling services. For a nationwide expansion, it is in particular the Länder and especially their Land anti-discrimination bodies that have a key role to play.

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