Youth social work in schools (JaS) helps to pass the qualification – if the school leaving certificate threatens to fail due to social problems. JaSers are the contact persons when there is stress in the family. Or bullying. They are now considered to be indispensable. However, it seems requirement in Bavaria for a long time not covered. On the one hand, funding practice creates problems. In addition, it has become difficult to fill vacancies: The Skilled workers shortage has long since reached the JaS.
Bavaria’s politicians have been promoting for years no child should be lost. But with a view to JaS, the sentence does not seem to really apply. According to Peter Kracklauer from the Kreisjugendring (KJR) Eichstätt, municipalities that recognize a need for YesS have to wait until the desired positions have been approved. Many churches want to help the children right away. And hire a specialist: “You will have to pay them out of your own pocket forever.” Subsequent funding is not possible.
Corona has increased the need for youth social work in schools
JaS is gaining in relevance, especially due to the corona crisis. “Here in the district we have schools where things really burn,” says Kracklauer. The KJR managing director knows about students who threatened suicide at the end of the last school year. Behavioral problems in schools are also increasing. Much more JaS people would be needed. There are currently five skilled workers employed by the Eichstätt District Youth Association. The KJR has the approval to fill six additional positions:
“But we can’t find any staff.”
After Corona, students don’t just have to Catch up on learning material, it threatened too social deficits, says Christof Reißenweber from the Evangelical Child, Youth and Family Aid in Würzburg, who is responsible for the JaS in the Main-Spessart district: “Some children had a year and a half vacation, so to speak.” Quite a few children and adolescents only took part in online lessons sporadically. Some spent a lot of time in front of the television. It is not yet foreseeable what kind of consequences this will have.
“Every school has a need for youth social work”
Many children – whether poor or rich – need help today. But in Bavaria, JaS is understood as a program for socially disadvantaged children and young people, says Kracklauer: “In the concepts that we submit to the government for new JaS positions, there must often be ‘social disadvantage’, otherwise it will be criticized.” According to KJR, the strict focus on socio-spatial criteria is difficult. “Every school has a need for youth social work,” emphasizes KJR chairman Manfred Muthig.
There are no regulations as to how JaS must be specifically designed. However, it is important that the Individual advice outweighs project work. However, there is a regulation that is problematic from the point of view of the KJR Eichstätt. “We are only allowed to employ social workers with at least three years of professional experience,” says Kracklauer. Despite the massive shortage of skilled workers, well-suited applicants from other professions would have to be rejected.
District of Munich as a pioneer in youth social work in schools
JaS is now included in the action plan of many Bavarian youth welfare offices. The district of Munich is one of the pioneers in the Free State. A JaS framework concept has existed there since 2006, and there are now around 100 JaS full-time positions in 83 schools. Total costs per year around 3.7 million euros, says press spokeswoman Christina Walzner. There are no funds from the Free State:
“We are excluded from state subsidies due to the premature start of measures.”
School as well as child and youth welfare have one Educational and educational mandate. In the Munich district, JaS is understood as “youth work to promote the development of young people” – this is the name of the offer according to the eighth social code. So it is not just socially disadvantaged children and young people who are supported there. The district’s concept allows, for example, preventive group offers for children to be offered directly in school, says Walzner.
The separation of the parents alone can cause umpteen problems in children that without advice and support hardly manageable is. Children from well-to-do homes suffer just as much as children from disadvantaged families. “That also applies to bullying,” says Reißenweber. He and his colleagues are active in middle and elementary schools, at a support center and at a vocational school in the Main-Spessart district.
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