[Development, situation and perspective of self-help support in Germany]. / Entwicklung, Situation und Perspektiven der Selbsthilfeunterstützung in Deutschland.

Self-help groups and self-help associations are an important part of the social security system. In Germany, self-help contact points, senior citizen centers, volunteer agencies, citizen centers and multi-generation houses combine citizen participation with innovative professional services. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee of continuous financial support for these important, locally administered institutions. There are about 280 self-help contact points and more than 400 federal self-help associations that support and promote self-help in Germany. Healthy communities, healthy workplaces and healthy people need a decentralized system of self-help programs operated at local and regional levels, in districts and towns. Thereby, professional support systems that operate self-help programs and promote citizen participation in the self-help programs must be managed in a similar regional format. New forms of cooperation from the regional and local governments, private companies, and citizen engagement already exist. Additionally, regional projects of integrated maintenance systems with the regional health maintenance institutions have been established. Currently, the central challenges of the self-help programs are quality development, inclusion of people with social disadvantages and of people with migrational background. The essential prerequisites for this work are continuous financial support and a politically supported infrastructure, which is in fact an important health investment.

[Health-related self-help of immigrants in Germany. Chances, barriers, potential]. / Gesundheitsbezogene Selbsthilfe bei Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund. Chancen, Barrieren, Potenziale.

Migrants in Germany participate in health-related self-help groups nearly as frequently as native-born Germans--as long as they have good German language skills and are widely integrated into the main society. However, the situation is different for those migrants who are not or only slightly integrated. Mother-tongue self-help groups of ethnic minorities would offer good chances for health-related self-management and coping; however, these groups are rare. This can partly be explained by the lack of knowledge of many migrants about support possibilities for self-help groups, also because the term "self-help" has no equivalent in many languages. On the other hand, there are many barriers for self-help activities: false shame attributed to certain health problems, fear of de-anonymization in ethnic communities, different concepts of health and illness, a lack of judging the potential of one's own competencies and self-efficacy, and particularly illiteracy. This article describes the relevance of self-help among migrants with special regard to self-organized migrant networks and outlines the current state of discussion within the self-help stakeholders. Finally, potential multipliers, networking examples and qualification measures for promotion of health-related self-help among migrants are presented.