Marzahn-Hellersdorf Leads in Family Care Cases: Senate Announces Successful Model Project

According to the Senate, Marzahn-Hellersdorf is the district with the most people taken into care. This means that a particularly large number of children are taken away from their families because of an urgent threat to the child’s well-being. Parents will then have their custody rights withdrawn by the youth welfare office. There are also a particularly large number of “troubled” families living there in which the parents are unable to adequately care for their children – who are therefore housed as inpatients, for example in assisted living groups.

Thanks to the “Family Council” model project, the situation in Marzahn-Hellersdorf is now improving significantly, as the district and Senate announced on Thursday: In an expanded test phase between September 2022 and June 2023, a total of 23 “inpatient accommodations could have been avoided or ended early”. 49 families took part in the model project during this period.

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The costs for 49 family councils during this period amount to 108,221.89 euros. This corresponds to a savings volume of around 108,000 euros per month for inpatient accommodation, said the Senate administration: “A total of around 1.4 million euros can potentially be saved annually, provided that inpatient accommodation is avoided in the long term.”

In 2023, around 130 families used the model. “It has been proven that in the Marzahn-Hellersdorf district, the influence of the youth welfare office has been significantly reduced and an escalation of family conflict situations has been avoided,” says the Senate. This applies to 47 percent of the families involved.

If families become suspicious and the youth welfare office gets involved, a specialist is usually assigned to them. The family is told from outside what they have to change and how. In the model project, the family itself has to convene a family council and define who should take part: for example the daycare center manager, neighbors, friends or the employer. And try to solve the problems independently, for example when the children always come to school late, hungry and look neglected.

The focus of specialists on the supposed problems of families is not always what really helps and can contribute to improving the situation.

Gordon LemmFamily City Councilor Marzahn-Hellersdorf

In the case of abuse and acute danger to the child’s well-being through physical violence, the procedure is different, the district says: “In such cases, the family council serves as a stabilization instrument with a view to whether and when the child can return to the family.”

Additional funding from the Youth Violence Summit

“Our experience shows that help is particularly effective and sustainable when it is provided by the families themselves,” said Gordon Lemm, District Councilor for Youth and Family. “The family council is consistently pursuing this strategy. The focus of specialists on the supposed problems of families is not always what really helps and can contribute to improving the situation. By actively involving families, we can achieve results that provide tailored support, retain fewer skilled workers and are therefore more effective and cheaper.”

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“The family council instrument demonstrably shows that families can resolve conflicts independently and cope with stressful life situations with their own networks,” said Falko Liecke, State Secretary for Youth and Family. “For children and young people, they represent an important opportunity to stay in their own family.”

Liecke announced that he would provide the districts with an additional 2.4 million euros from the youth violence summit for 2024 and 2025 in order to consolidate and expand the concept of family councils across the board. One million of these will go to Marzahn-Hellersdorf. In order to coordinate the project there, two offices will be set up by different providers, one in Marzahn and one in Hellersdorf.

In addition to Marzahn-Hellersdorf, other districts also work with family councils: Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Treptow-Köpenick, Lichtenberg, Mitte, Tempelhof-Schöneberg and Neukölln also do it, but partly from different budgets. The project will be “further rolled out” for all districts, according to the Senate administration.

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Although family councils are very useful and sustainable, they are by no means a new Berlin model project and Marzahn-Hellersdorf is not a pioneer in this area, criticizes Marianne Burkert-Eulitz, family policy spokeswoman for the Greens in the House of Representatives. “This has long been standard in youth welfare services in Berlin in many districts.”

The introduction of family councils in Berlin has been discussed at least since 2008. She points out that the original term for this is “Family Group Conference” and that the concept comes from Maori culture. New Zealand youth welfare offices used it first. “I fought for this approach more than ten years ago; the red-black Senate at the time didn’t think the idea was that important,” says Burkert-Eulitz. The approach had already become established in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg back then.

“I think it’s good that Marzahn-Hellersdorf has now recognized this and is working accordingly. They are now catching up with what other districts have been doing for a long time.” She criticizes that the youth welfare office in Marzahn-Hellersdorf has often intervened too late with problem families in comparison to the youth welfare offices of other districts in the past. “If the cases are simply allowed to run their course, the families are driven into misfortune and the costs increase immensely.” As a family law lawyer, she often deals with families from Marzahn-Hellersdorf whose children have been taken away from their families.

However, she considers it risky that the “family council” concept would prevent people being taken into care. To do this, you have to take a closer look at the cases.

2024-04-06 01:12:19
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