Speech therapy services in Nuremberg

I am a speech language pathologist (ie. speech therapist) moving to Nuremberg at the end of the year. I am wondering about the likelihood of working privately in Germany, particularly for children with speech or language problems - ie. how would I go about advertising, where would I advertise, what would be the best way of finding English-speaking families, are there English-speaking schools, etc. Also, does anyone know the legal requirements of working privately rather than for a company? I assume the laws would be similar to those for private language tutors in Germany.

Any help or advice would be most appreciated!

Sam

The most English speaking families will be in Ansbach U.S. military base about 30 min from there. They have speech therapists, but they are as far as I know contracted to work through a firm called Sterling in the States. You may want to check the U.S. military overseas employment websites to see what the rules and regs are

Good luck

Hi Sam,

I work with German Speechtherapists here in my area who have their own practices. You will definitely have to send your qualifications to the German ministry and let them be accepted as the equivalent to the german "Logopädin" because you will need these papers to open your own practice. I think you will have to contact the different Health Insurances ( see telephone books ) and get yourself registered as a qualified Spechtherapist. Because you accept prescriptions from the docters which will be paid by the Health Insurance. As long as you observe the Health regulations ( for toilets etc ) I don't think that is a problem. Some Speechtherapists contact the Association for "Logopäden" and get an extra recommendation to hang out in the practice but this is not necessary. I guess you will have to do a lot of footwork and contact all the Childrens docters in the area, leave flyers and information because they are the people who write the prescriptions. A good tip is to contact the Kindergartens in the area because sometimes they notice that a child has speech problems and can advise the parents to send their child to a speech therapist ( would recommend you ) Also you could contact other self employed therapists such as "Ergotherapy" and organise a cooperations contract so that when the Ergotherapeut thinks that the child also has speechproblems he/she can send them to you ( would at least recommend you )

Hope this has helped a bit.
Nicola

What Nicola says is correct, the "Logopädin" who works with our children has her own practice and comes to us on prescription, which means going via a doctor. The health insurance also checks whether a speech therapy is necessary or worthwhile, because, of course they´re paying for it. We have recently the problem that the AOK wanted to cut one teenager´s ergotherapy - the parents made an official protest (Widerspruch) and, luckily, won.

There are 3 very large 'International' English speaking companies in the Nürnberg area as well as the US Military base in Ansbach.

adidas, Puma and Siemens; the familes are relocated to Germany and the children attend the International schools in the area of Herzogenaurach, Erlangen and Nurnberg.