Are the number of cases exploding in youth welfare? and with it the cost. According to a statement from the Federal Statistical Office from November 2020, over a million children and young people need educational help – a new high. The number of cases increased by 22 percent between 2009 and 2019.
Educational assistance includes low-threshold offers such as parenting advice, more intensive assistance such as full-time care in foster families and cost-intensive measures such as accommodation in a home. According to the Federal Statistical Office, a total of 136,000 children and young people across Germany made use of this service in 2019 because of extreme behavioral problems. In 2009 the number was 91,000.
The risks of behavioral problems increase
If a child grows up in poverty or in divergent family structures, the risk of having behavioral problems increases. Parents’ high stress or mental illness can also pose a risk. “These factors have all increased demonstrably in the last few years ??, say experts such as the director of the St. Josef therapeutic home in Würzburg, Norbert Beck. Accordingly, the risk of behavioral problems in children has increased. That is also the digitization of the children’s world and that often Experts suspect that the resulting lack of exercise leads to behavioral problems.
On the other hand, “stable, stable, loving families” in which a child can experience security of attachment, especially in the first few years of life, would offer protection against behavioral problems. “But we have less and less viable families,” says Beck.
The assumption, however, that especially unaccompanied minor refugees with behavioral problems, whose care is also the responsibility of youth welfare, are responsible for the massive increase in the use of “educational assistance” is no longer true, according to studies. Accordingly, the number of refugees in the homes was high in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Overall, however, the number of refugees in Germany has fallen in the past two years; however, the number of cases among young people who need help with upbringing continues to rise.
The number of required places in a home has risen sharply in Lower Franconia
According to the home supervision of the government of Lower Franconia, the number of places for children and adolescents who are difficult to bring up in accordance with Section 34 of the Social Security Code in Lower Franconia was 1520 places in 2019. In 2010 there were still 1,100 places.
The costs for therapeutic homes are very high due to the large number of staff required. According to statements from Lower Franconian home managers, the accommodation of a single young person there costs up to 7,000 euros ?? namely per month. But even if you only use the average value of 5,000 euros for the monthly home costs given by the home supervisory authority, monthly costs of 7.6 million euros are incurred for all 1520 Lower Franconian reformatory places. That’s 91 million euros per year. A cap on costs is not provided for in youth welfare.
Municipalities and districts are heavily burdened by youth welfare costs
The law stipulates that the youth welfare offices of the municipalities and districts bear the costs in full. There is no state aid – unless the residents are minors, unaccompanied refugees. In view of the exorbitant home costs, local politicians in all of Lower Franconia are increasingly concerned about their steadily increasing youth welfare budget.
The head of the district administration of Würzburg, Rainer Künzig, informed about the “cost increase in youth welfare ?? by 2.4 million euros to 20.2 million euros. The increase was primarily due to a comparatively small number of young people who were in Künzig said that local politicians from the Main-Spessart, Kitzingen, Schweinfurt and Miltenberg districts have made comparable statements in recent years.
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