For professionals

Dear colleagues and people working to provide care for our target groups,

As employees of

• Health care organisations, clinics and practices that treat and care for women* experiencing unintended pregnancies

• Pregnancy counselling centres pursuant to Section 219 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) and psychosocial counselling centres for women experiencing unintended pregnancies

• Organisations that work for the reproductive rights of women* experiencing unintended pregnancies

• Organisations that promote the empowerment and self-determination of women* and women’s associations
• Family centres and sociocultural centres for women
• Women’s counselling centres
• Women’s refuges and shared living accommodations for young families
• Violence prevention, intervention and counselling organisations dealing with stalking, domestic violence and sexual violence
• Organisations that support victims of crime and work to prevent crimes against women*, such as victim support centres and Weißer Ring e.V
• Migration and psychosocial counselling centres for refugees and undocumented women*
• Central housing organisations for refugees and migration centres
• Initiatives providing medical care to undocumented women, such as Medinetz, Medibüro, etc.
• Refugee and migrant organisations

… you are in direct contact with the women who we are aiming to give a voice to as part of the ELSA project.

We would like to ask you to support our research project by enabling us to contact potential interviewees. We are planning to carry out quantitative and qualitative interviews on the topic of ‘Experiences and life situations of women experiencing unintended pregnancies’ from ‘vulnerable groups’.

For the interviews, we are looking for women who

• are in violent relationships with a partner or have experienced violence from a partner
• have a history of migration and/or have been refugees
• are living in Germany without a secure residency status, i.e. are undocumented.

We are aware that the counselling and health care situation of these women is very significantly influenced by external factors and tends not to be up to the general standard. These women experiencing unintended pregnancies have no access, for example, to counselling and health care via the standard care routes. In addition, the care landscape in Germany varies significantly by region and the access routes are very diverse as well as, in some cases, highly dependant on the resources of the women seeking support.

This is the subject of our research project.

It is important to us to learn about the experiences and life situations of these women directly from them in order to be able to describe needs in detail and thus help to improve and further develop the care situation especially for these groups.

If you are interested in the ELSA project, we would be delighted to receive a call from you so we can discuss your expectations, options and ideas.

Date: We expect to carry out this study from October 2021 onwards
Location: We carry out the quantitative and qualitative interviews in suitable and safe locations, and we accommodate the wishes of the interviewees.
Duration: The interviews with the women will last approx. 60 minutes. If necessary, an interpreter will be arranged in advance. The interviewees will receive compensation.

We would like to ask you to support our research project by enabling us to contact women. You can provide us with sensitive access to this field by helping to enable us to contact the women. Naturally, all interviews will be carried out and evaluated anonymously so they cannot be linked to the interviewees.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any more questions.
If you are unable to provide us with any contacts for the interviews, we would be delighted if you could recommend us to organisations and institutions working in the above fields that may be interested.