Grüne on families

The Greens want to strengthen youth work after the COVID-19 pandemic with a five-year action program. Mobile and outreach services are to grow, and child and youth welfare services are to work more closely with schools.

Many activities for young people were canceled during COVID. The Greens want to start a five-year program. There should be more youth work. Street work should also grow. That is social work done right on the street.

The action program includes a training drive for the Juleica (youth leader card) and a campaign promoting youth work. Street work is to become part of prevention strategies for public safety. The party wants to strengthen young people's physical and mental health. For child and youth welfare, it will examine whether a specialist service center could improve quality, with researchers and stakeholders invited to help design it.

The Greens want to fully implement the state action plan against sexual violence toward children and young people as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Prevention and support services are to grow, and child protection clinics are to be expanded.

The Greens want to protect children better from sexual violence. There should be more advice and help. There should be more child protection clinics. Doctors there examine children who have suffered violence.

Schools, sports and clubs are to be made more aware of the issue. As support services, the platform names counseling centers against sexualized violence and the Childhood-Haus. Medical child protection clinics are to increase in number and receive reliable funding.

The Greens want to help parents combine work and family and to support all family types, especially single parents and rainbow families. Family centers are to be strengthened and fertility treatment subsidized more.

The Greens want to help families. Parents should be able to combine work and family. Family centers should get more support. Couples who want a child should get more money for treatment.

As examples, the platform lists family-friendly jobs and working hours, models for a four-day week, job training and bringing single parents into the labor market. The party seeks a social shift toward equally shared care work. Parents with disabilities are also to receive targeted help. People struggling to conceive would get counseling and more state money where health insurance does not cover treatment.

The Greens focus on education and care from birth to age ten because, in their view, this is where the foundations for later success are laid. Daycare, childminding and elementary schools are to cooperate more closely, and 50 additional family centers are to open within five years.

The first years of life matter a lot for children. So daycare centers and elementary schools should work together more closely. The Greens want 50 new family centers. Families get help and advice there.

The state education and care plan is to be developed further to link childminding, nurseries, daycare centers and elementary schools more closely; cooperation between daycare and school is to become binding. In elementary schools, multi-professional teams are to enable individual support, and reading, writing and arithmetic are to be strengthened further. A state service office supports the family centers. Schools are to network with child and youth services in their neighborhood. The state parents' council for daycare will continue to be supported, and children are to be involved more.

The Greens want an investment package to help municipalities expand daycare and nursery places. An accompanying action plan is meant to improve quality and working conditions, including everyday helpers for non-teaching tasks.

The Greens want more places in daycare centers and nurseries. Towns and cities will get state money for this. Daycare should also get better. Helpers should take some work off the teachers.

The investment package is called "Kleine Hände – Große Zukunft" (Small Hands – Big Future), and the action plan is called "Kita von Morgen" (Daycare of Tomorrow). Full-day care is to be expanded because parents increasingly work full time. For childminding, the party wants to improve training, working conditions and funding. The program counts healthy food, exercise, time in nature, and age-appropriate democracy and peace education as part of quality. Child protection training is to become mandatory for managers and staff in daycare and elementary schools.

The Greens want to tackle staff shortages in daycare centers and nurseries with more funded training places. The state is to fund 1,000 paid, practice-integrated training places for early childhood educators every year.

Daycare centers lack trained staff. The Greens want to fund 1,000 training places every year. The trainees get paid. People from other jobs should also be able to switch more easily.

The existing "Fachkräfteoffensive Kita" (daycare staffing drive) is to be expanded. Municipalities are to be encouraged and supported in creating further training places themselves, and vocational colleges are to offer more places as well. People returning to the profession or changing careers are to be attracted with good conditions and further training. Foreign qualifications are to be recognized faster and top-up training improved.

The Greens want to advance inclusion in daycare centers, nurseries and childminding and to develop language support further. The Sprach-Kita (language daycare) program, formerly paid for by the federal government, is to continue with state money.

Children with and without disabilities should go to daycare together. The Greens also want better language support in daycare. The state should keep paying for language daycare centers. Children from immigrant families should get more help.

Training on inclusion is to be strengthened and low-barrier playgrounds funded. The state has taken over the expired federal funding for Sprach-Kitas and wants to continue it; at federal level the party pushes for long-term financing. The coordination office for children with a refugee background is to become an office for "diversity in child daycare." Advisory, networking and service offers for children with a migration background are to be expanded.