Pia Friedrichs is working on a dissertation on integration assistance as an instrument for ensuring participation in the context of dementia. The aim is to understand why integration assistance has so far played virtually no role in the context of dementia - the aim is to make a contribution to improving the care of people with dementia.
Pia Friedrichs studied social work in Dortmund and Cologne and worked as a social worker in various healthcare contexts until 2024, including in hospital social services and dementia counselling. She was involved in establishing the counselling centre for rare forms of dementia at Caritasverband Düsseldorf e.V. and worked as a lecturer in teaching and research at katHo Cologne. Parallel to her dissertation, she is currently working at the Memory Centre Neuss in the counselling centre for people with dementia and their relatives. Her research interests focus on health-related social inequality, participation research and care and support for families with dementia.
Contact: pia.friedrichs@tu-dortmund.de
The dissertation project deals with the possibilities of integration assistance (SGB IX) for people with dementia (PWD) to support and ensure their participation in society. In practice, counselling for people with dementia shows that in certain cases, integration assistance would be a sensible, important and necessary help for people with dementia. As a rule, however, people do not receive this benefit. As there is still little to no knowledge on this topic in practice and science, but at the same time the described (unmet) need is evident, the dissertation investigates what role integration assistance plays or could play in ensuring the participation of PWD in Germany. In addition to gaining scientific knowledge in the context of participation research, a key objective is to make a contribution to improving the participation and living situation of PWD.
The project pursues an explorative mixed-method approach. The qualitative part examines the understanding of participation among the actors involved in supporting PWD and the importance they attach to integration assistance for PWD. The quantitative part is concerned with framing these findings. With the help of a secondary data analysis, existing data sets from the subject area are analysed to determine which needs PWD indicate and which of these could be assigned to the range of services provided by integration assistance.