Scientific monitoring of the pilot project for the implementation and evaluation of a mobile specialist team (specialist consultant teams) to improve the living and care situation of people with challenging behavior in Rhineland-Palatinate (short name: Mobile Specialist Team Rhineland-Palatinate)

Project management: Prof. Dr. Christian Lindmeier
Project collaborator: Petra Schürmann (Dipl.-Päd.)

Project outline

People with intellectual disabilities and challenging behavior as well as people with
mental illness and challenging behavior repeatedly present their environment with problems that are extremely stressful and are often experienced as difficult to solve by the people themselves and those around them.
People whose disabilities and previous life experiences cause them to build up anxiety and get into crises in
seemingly normal life relationships and situations,
sometimes develop behaviors that pose a considerable challenge for their fellow human beings, their relatives and
caregivers.
In extreme cases, this manifests itself in massive physical aggression towards others or
themselves. The focus is often on the person from whom the conspicuous behavior
originates. By pathologizing the problems, the focus of treatment has so far been solely on reducing the problem behaviour.
To a large extent, however, there are communication problems on all sides that prevent us from meeting people's individual life needs, which are often difficult to fathom, and from creating conditions in which they do not have to resort to aggressive forms of expression.
Behavior must therefore not be viewed independently of the interaction processes.
A "mobile specialist team", consisting of doctors, educators, psychologists etc., should help to develop new
perspectives and solutions and contribute to ensuring that the necessary help can be provided to the people concerned in a professional manner.
Counseling should be seen as an opportunity for reorientation and to break down entrenched
behaviors.
Changes are conceivable, for example, in the housing situation, in staffing, in
staff competence, in care concepts, in the organization of the day and lifestyle.
The use of the mobile specialist team only makes sense if there is a willingness to change on the part of those involved
. The basis is a humanistic (Christian) view of humanity, which is supported by tolerance, appreciation and empathy.

As part of its advisory services, the mobile specialist team should

• help to avoid inpatient accommodation in special facilities,
• develop alternatives to special residential and care facilities, and in particular
• enable the person to remain in their preferred living environment,
• work towards improving cooperation between previously unconnected professions in the region.

The task of the scientific evaluation is to closely support and advise the central
coordination office in setting up the mobile specialist teams and to provide
information that will facilitate a fundamental decision on the continuation and further development of the mobile specialist teams and the central
coordination office after the end of the project phase.

In order to do justice to the model character of the project, the design of a formative evaluation was agreed for the scientific
support. Due to their proximity to practice, their results are intended to provide direct feedback and have a direct impact on the further development of the practical work of the mobile specialist teams. The scientific evaluation therefore ultimately serves the quality assurance and development of this new service.

The contents of the evaluation are

• The descriptive analysis of the data collected from the individual case counseling (document analysis),
• the intensive evaluation of selected support processes (guided interviews, observations), and
• the analysis/evaluation of the success of the work of the specialist team (satisfaction surveys, guided interviews).

The project runs for a period of three years and is financed by third-party funds with a total funding volume of €105,000
. The third-party funding is made up of public funds from the state (30%) and own funds (70%) from Aktion Mensch, Stiftung Lebenshilfe, Stiftung Gesundheitsfürsorge Speyer, Diakonissen Speyer Mannheim and Paritätischer.