My story
“The task of education is not to mold the child,
but to allow it to reveal itself.”
Maria Montessori
I grew up in the south of Germany, with stops in the east and finally arrived in the north - always accompanied by my German-Polish cultural heritage, which has shaped me and which I still carry with me today. I have been traveling since I was 14. For me, home is not a place, but a feeling - and I always carry this feeling with me.
After completing my degree in Education and Psychology (B.A.), I jumped straight in at the deep end: I worked for five years in the child and youth emergency service in Hamburg - one of the toughest, but also most instructive stations in youth welfare.
At the reception center, I met young people who had fallen through the cracks. It was there that I understood how important it is for us as a society to take responsibility - not only as helpers, but also as co-creators of a system that all too often comes too late.
During my time in Hamburg, a trip to Ireland took me to a small, windswept island in the Atlantic. And it was there that I had my decisive aha moment: young people need places like this - far away from the usual, from pressure, stimuli and expectations. Places where they can just be. To heal. To mature. To test their limits. To experience themselves anew.
Two years later, it was clear to me: I want to create a system that is 100% geared towards the needs of young people. No cookie-cutter thinking - just individual, intensive support that really works.
This is the path I am taking today with the Intensive Educational Individual Measures (ISE) - and with the firm conviction that change begins where real encounters are possible:
Change begins where real encounters are possible.
My vision
Creating opportunities.
Taking responsibility.
Shaping the future.
I believe in second chances - and that every young person can find their own path.
In my work, I experience time and again that change is possible - but it requires space, trust and genuine encounters.
I accompany children and young people who have often already undergone many measures - without lasting success. They are stuck in destructive patterns, shaped by drugs, alcohol, violence or deep mistrust.
I know that hardly any movement is possible in their familiar environment. That's why I deliberately create something completely new with the intensive educational individual measure (ISE) - a place without old triggers, with new impulses and real clarity.
I work respectfully, consistently and with a clear view of human nature: every young person has the potential to change - if they are given the chance to experience themselves in a new way.
I like to compare it to a diet: as long as the cupboard is full of temptations, it is difficult to give up. In the same way, personal development needs an environment that frees you from old patterns, constraints and expectations.
My support is not about “functioning”, but about taking responsibility, trying things out and developing new perspectives.
My goal is for young people to feel again:
“I can make a difference. I count. And I have a future.”
Why abroad?
Working abroad offers much more than just a change of scenery - it opens up real scope for development.
Young people not only experience a cultural gain here, but one thing above all: freedom from prejudice. They meet people who are unbiased and interested in them - often without the negative image that accompanies them in Germany.
I deliberately choose places where community, cohesion and reliability are central values. Here, young people do not just react to crises - they act with foresight and consistency.
I reject measures in Germany. Why?
Because many of these young people have become real survivalists in their environment. They know exactly how to use systems for themselves, how to end measures or how to create ways and means to escape the pain of their reality - through substances, withdrawal or escalation.
Abroad, on the other hand, these “buttons” are unknown or at least more difficult to push. This creates a real space for pedagogical work - clear, structured, accompanied.
In this new system, young people learn to take different paths step by step - not alone, but with a reliable partner at their side.
And what does science say?
According to a study on measures abroad in the context of individual education, there are promising results. Many people want to hear this - measurable results, figures, studies. And yes, there are these studies that prove that measures abroad in particular can set sustainable development processes in motion.
But even if the success rate were just one percent
- that would be a complete success for me.
Because behind this figure is a young person, a single child who has made it:
Out of the destructive cycle. Out of drugs, violence and hopelessness.
Towards a life in which their own resources can be felt again.
In which steps forward are possible.
Every day that a young person is not on the street,
not in the milieu, not intoxicated or powerless - is a good day.
is a good day. And it is precisely for these days that I work.
