Support for young people in difficult circumstances
The target group of support for hard-to-reach young people are young people between the ages of 15 and 25 who are not or temporarily not reached by the social benefit systems. These young people are socially disadvantaged or individually impaired and are therefore unable to find a job or training place or apply for basic social security benefits.
As part of the programme, you can support these young people in difficult circumstances by providing them with additional support, initiating educational processes and helping them to find out about and apply for basic social security benefits.
The individual problems of young people and their causes are very complex.
Examples can be
- lack of school-leaving qualifications
- no job/training place
- Deficits in terms of social skills, motivation, resilience and key qualifications
- (impending) homelessness
- family conflicts
- difficult biographical histories (growing up in a foster family/residential group or in families with entrenched long-term unemployment)
- financial problems/debt
- health or addiction problems
In order to reach these young people, possible support services must also be individually tailored, for example to stabilise their financial situation
- provide support when applying for social benefits, such as unemployment benefit II
- help them find accommodation or stabilise their housing situation
- accompany them when dealing with authorities
- introduce them to therapeutic treatments
- helping to build up social networks
- support the development of work and social behaviour or learning and educational readiness
- prepare for catching up on school qualifications and finding a job or apprenticeship.
In principle, programmes of this kind are primarily provided by other social service providers (e.g. youth welfare services). As a certified training provider, you can therefore only receive funding if similar programmes are not available locally from these primary social service providers and do not have to be prioritised.
Funding can be publicly advertised by the job centre or provided as project funding in accordance with grant law. In the case of project funding, the project must be limited in terms of time and content; institutional funding is not possible.
You have no legal claim to the funding.
Details
Prerequisite
To be authorised to provide services to support young people who are difficult to reach, you must be certified in accordance with the Accreditation and Authorisation Ordinance (AZAV).
For young people to be able to take advantage of the support services, they must
- be between 15 and under 25 years of age, and
- be reasonably likely to be entitled to unemployment benefit II, and
- they must have the basic objective,
- start and complete an apprenticeship or vocational qualification or
- find a job or
- Apply for or accept social benefits.
Procedure
There are two ways to obtain funding for hard-to-reach young people.
- Procurement procedure (public contract)
- Go to the website of the Federal Office of Administration or to the e-tendering platform of the Federal Ministry's Procurement Office.
- Use the search function on the pages to find suitable tenders.
- Create a tender based on the framework conditions specified in the tender documents.
- Your contact person will inform you of all further steps in the application process.
- Project funding
- Develop a concept for your project. Here you should also explain how much of your own funds and, if applicable, municipal state funds will be included in the financing.
- Find out from the relevant job centre how you can apply for project funding.
- Then submit an application for financial support.
- Your contact person at the relevant job centre will inform you of all further steps.
Deadlines
You must observe the deadline for tenders.
Required documents
varies with awarding measure and project funding
Costs
In the case of project funding, you as the project organiser are obliged to contribute your own funds to the project.
There are no costs for the participants.
Processing time
- Procurement procedure: Here you can see the deadlines in the invitation to tender. The contract will be awarded approximately 2 months after the end of the tender period.
- Project funding: If you are interested in funding a specific project, please contact your local job centre. They will also be able to tell you what lead time you should allow.
Miscellaneous
Further information can be found on the website of the Federal Office of Administration and the Federal Employment Agency.
Federal Employment Agency - Procedural regulations on § 16h SGB II
Federal Employment Agency - Labour market services
Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs - Support for young people in difficult circumstances
Legal basis
Sozialgesetzbuch (SGB) Zweites Buch (II) - Bürgergeld, Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende:
- § 16h Förderung schwer zu erreichender junger Menschen
Release note
Machine generated, based on the German release by: Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales (BMAS) und Wirtschaftsministerium Baden-Württemberg, 08.07.2025