Grüne on families

The Greens want to ease single parents' path into work through part-time vocational training, family-friendly working hours and flexible childcare. The platform justifies this with the high poverty risk of this group in the state of Bremen.

Single parents are often poor. The Greens want to help them. There should be more part-time job training. Daycare should also be open early and late. Working hours should fit families better.

Part-time training is to become more widely available in both school-based and dual vocational programs. At the federal level, the party wants to push for full-length funding of training that starts while someone receives ALG II benefits. Together with companies and unions, more family-friendly working time models are to be developed. In expanding daycare, early and late hours are to get more weight, and flexible facilities and gap-filling care options are to be expanded.

The Greens want to better coordinate and expand support for families with young children across government departments. Family education institutions are to receive more money and staff. According to the platform, this is meant to prevent poverty and relieve the youth welfare office.

The Greens want to help families with small children early. Government offices should work together better. Family centers and mothers' centers should get more money. They should also get more staff. This should help prevent poverty.

The overall early childhood strategy and its steering office, in which the health office, youth welfare office and school authority work together, are to be continued. The aim is to improve transitions between the various services. Family houses, mothers' centers, multigenerational houses, community centers and parenting advice centers are to be strengthened. According to the platform, their preventive work avoids costly child-raising assistance and strengthens social cohesion.

The Greens want parents to receive educational offerings and support at every daycare center. The program argues that the family is the central place where children are raised. Interpreting services and German courses for parents are to complement this.

The Greens want to give parents more support. Every daycare center should have offerings for parents. Topics include health and media use. Interpreters should help. German courses for parents should continue.

The offerings are to cover topics such as health, sexuality, media use, violence prevention and diversity. A fixed pool of language mediators is planned, along with multilingual offerings where possible. Programs such as "Mama lernt Deutsch" (Mom learns German) are to continue and reach more parents.

The Greens want to expand daycare faster. The goal is a place for every child over three and for 66 percent of children under three in every district. Until then, children without a place are to get a basic early education offering.

The Greens want to build new daycare centers faster. Every child over three should get a place. For younger children, the goal is 66 percent. This should apply in every district. Children without a place should get another offering until then.

The expansion is to be based on the highest demand forecasts, and planning and construction are to be sped up. Alongside conventional centers, nature-based daycare is to be created, for example on allotment garden plots. During the transition, all children aged 3 to 6 without a place are to get at least a low-barrier offering. The program names family daycare, playgroups and supervised playgrounds.

The Greens want longer care hours so that all parents can work, including full-time. Single parents are to get a right to eight hours of care per day. The fixed enrollment date tied to the daycare year is to be dropped in the medium term.

The Greens want longer hours at daycare centers. This lets parents work full-time. Single parents should get a right to eight hours a day. Children should be able to start daycare in the middle of the year.

A place is to be available for every child from the age of nine months. The rigid yearly rule is to be replaced by enrollment and entry during the year, based on the child's age and the family's Elterngeld (parental allowance). The program calls longer hours, especially early and late in the day, important for working parents. Large companies are to get more involved in childcare, for example with daycare centers on their premises.

The Greens want a statewide strategy that coordinates the existing ways for young people to take part in decisions. According to the platform, there are many options but no joint planning.

Young people in Bremen can have a say in many places. But these options are not well coordinated. So the Greens want one shared plan. Young people should help write the plan.

The strategy is to be drawn up together with young people, youth associations and the responsible government departments in several formats. Young people living in residential care or foster families are to get help setting up a state residential-care council and a foster children's council. So-called care leavers are also to be supported in forming their own groups, and their experience is to feed into child and youth services. In addition, a youth check on legislation is to show how proposals affect people aged 12 to 27. A youth report is to serve as the basis for youth work.

The Greens want more programs that prevent violence against children and want to strengthen parents' child-rearing skills. The platform attributes violence in many cases to a lack of knowledge and to caregivers being overwhelmed.

Too many children experience violence. The Greens want more programs to prevent it. Parents should get more advice. Counseling centers should work together better.

The outreach counseling service for children who witness domestic violence is to become better known and work more closely with the youth welfare office. To reach families whose children are not in daycare, pediatric practices are to point to counseling during routine checkups. The counseling itself is to be done by additional staff at the specialist centers in the Bündnis Kinderschutz (child protection alliance), not by the doctors. Parenting counseling and existing programs for parents are to continue and grow, including in several languages. A yearly network meeting of family policy organizations is also planned, and the youth welfare office is to keep gaining staff.

The Greens want to press at the federal level for a model called Elternvollzeit (parental full-time). Both parents would cut their working hours at the same time and receive compensation for lost pay.

The Greens want a new model for parents. Both parents work fewer hours at the same time. They still get money to make up for lost pay. Single parents should be able to use it too.

The model is based on the partner months in Elterngeld (parental allowance). Both parents would work no more than 35 and no fewer than 25 hours a week over the same period. Their pay would be topped up. Single parents are to have access to the arrangement as well. The platform points out that care work is unevenly divided between the sexes.

The Greens want urban development to focus more on children, young people and families. This includes play streets, more play areas and places for young people to meet without having to buy anything.

Children need safe places to play. The Greens want play streets in front of daycare centers and schools. Schoolyards should also be open in the afternoon and on weekends. Young people should get places where they can meet.

For the platform, a child-friendly city means enough playgrounds, safe sidewalks, and slower and relocated car traffic. Daycare grounds and schoolyards are to become accessible outside opening hours, in agreement with the institutions. Small play spots in public space are to be easier to set up, and existing play areas will continue to be modernized. For young people, the plan foresees sports fields, exercise options and open spaces indoors and outdoors where being loud is allowed. An advice center is to help people up to age 30 with finding housing and with legal questions.

The Greens want to keep funding youth centers, youth clubs and open youth work and to improve their quality. In neighborhoods where the number of young people has risen sharply and need is high, new leisure and sports options are to be created. Neighborhood farms are to get their own stable funding.

The Greens want to keep funding youth centers and youth clubs. Many young people spend their free time there. Some neighborhoods now have many more young people. These areas should get new offers. All young people should be able to enter the buildings without barriers.

The first youth report is to serve as the basis. Facilities are to be accessible, including accessible restrooms, and open youth work is to be more closely involved as all-day schools expand. Neighborhood farms are to receive institutional funding instead of money from the open youth work budget. The platform names the Oslebshausen Multisports Area as one new project. Funds will still be allocated by social indicators, with a transition period for established programs in districts whose indicators have improved. The separate fund for programs serving several districts is to be made permanent and enlarged.

The Greens want the youth welfare office to be adequately staffed and want to retain new employees through on-the-job training and support. The same is to apply to independent providers. Funding for volunteer work in clubs and youth associations is also to rise.

The youth welfare office should have enough staff. New staff should stay and get further training. This also applies to other youth service providers. The Greens also want more funding for volunteers in clubs. Volunteers are people who help without pay.

The platform notes that the staffing target for public child and youth services has already been raised considerably. Professional standards are to keep rising, and neighborhood resources are to be used preventively. Support programs are meant mainly for people new to the profession and career changers. The workforce is to become more diverse so that all young people can find role models. Higher funding for volunteering is meant to keep programs running and ease cooperation between paid staff and volunteers.