Baden-Württemberg wants to turn integration managers into vaccination ambassadors – southwest

He proposed that to Health and Social Affairs Minister Manne Lucha, said Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (both Greens) in Stuttgart. The integration managers in the municipalities should be trained quickly and unbureaucratically so that they can bring information and questions about vaccination to the neighborhoods.

The integration managers – mostly social workers – actually look after refugees with the prospect of staying in the municipalities, towns and districts. In the summer of 2017, Social Affairs Minister Lucha gave the go-ahead for what he said was unique nationwide program. The experts ensure that refugees in the subsequent accommodation receive offers to learn German, to gain professional qualifications and to integrate into the labor market. It’s about low-threshold social counseling.

Now the integration professionals should advertise vaccination. Because: Especially in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods and among people with a migration background, the vaccination rate is low. According to the state ministry, surveys show that 60 percent of the unvaccinated are strict refusal to vaccinate, but 19 percent are ready to be vaccinated. “In the public debate, of course, we focus heavily on the loud and visible corona deniers,” said Kretschmann.

“We don’t even reach a significant part of the population with our appeals,” said Kretschmann. He speaks of educationally disadvantaged groups, of the socially disadvantaged, of people who speak German poorly or who belong to the roughly six million functionally illiterate people in Germany – those who cannot read and write properly. In addition, you do not reach all people with a migration background by a long way.

“Then there are the people who are so challenged with their everyday lives that they simply ignore the question of vaccination, forget it or are overwhelmed by it,” said the head of government. They were not concerned with health issues and had no particular reasons for doing so. “They often live withdrawn and stay out of everything – from demos, discourses, also from surveys – which give us our picture of the motives of vaccination opponents or skeptics.”

You can only reach these people if you deliberately enter these milieus. “Many municipalities are already doing that with the mobile vaccination teams. But we want to strengthen this again in order to further reduce the quota of non-vaccinated people.” According to the State Ministry, the vaccination ambassadors should not only enlighten and explain, but also “show the way to vaccination in a very practical way”.

The Baden-Württemberg Community Day was open to the idea. They want to discuss the deliberation with the country in more depth, said Steffen Jäger, President of the Municipal Council. “It is certainly sensible that integration managers inform the people they support about the need for vaccination, but it should already take place in a variety of ways,” he said. “It can make perfect sense to further strengthen this approach conceptually.”

The Baden-Württemberg Refugee Council did not want to comment on the initiative without knowing what it meant in concrete terms. Basically, people of trust who can respond to concerns and reservations are very important to convince people that the vaccination is important and safe, said the head of the office, Seán McGinley. Ideally, integration managers could take on this role. “But an additional task also requires additional resources and capacity,” he said. “And I would be against giving the integration managers extensive additional tasks without a corresponding increase in staff.”

According to the Ministry of Health, integration management has developed into a central component of the integration work of cities and municipalities. “We are also convinced that it could also be a model for other federal states.” The program created around 900 full-time positions and supported the municipalities with 287 million euros for the five-year project period.

Kretschmann spoke of a dormant potential in the southwest. At the beginning of the pandemic, for example, it was found that some Russian-German milieus were totally indoctrinated by Kremlin television. “The integration managers have experience with migration environments. They know the local people, they know where and how the approach works best. They have a relationship of trust with the people they look after,” he said. “I’m hoping for another boost.”

One could not wait for the vaccination to be mandatory, warned Kretschmann with a view to the high number of infections and the spreading omicron variant. Even the compulsory vaccination for certain occupational groups, for example in hospitals and nursing homes, will not be ready until spring. “We have to make sure that we get the vaccination quota high beforehand.” In addition, one does not know for sure whether there will be a compulsory vaccination at all, that depends on many things – for example, whether the vaccine is still effective against the Omikron variant.

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