Grüne on families

The Greens want to gradually expand all-day care in daycare centers and, above all, raise its quality. The core is a better staff-to-child ratio, to be reached through a phased plan for a third staff member in each group.

The Greens want more all-day places in daycare. They also want better care. Each group should get a third trained worker. This should happen step by step. Staff should get more time to prepare.

The platform calls for clear standards and quality management for daycare centers, along with enough space. The third staff member is meant to be a full part of the team, not just cover a few hours. Employees are to get more non-contact time, meaning working hours without direct childcare. The expansion should also consider single parents and parents working shifts or weekends. Training and continuing education should firmly include social diversity, anti-racism and overcoming gender stereotypes.

The Greens want inclusion in nurseries and kindergartens to be regulated by law. Every group should have special-needs education expertise, and daycare centers across the state should become barrier-free.

Children with and without disabilities should go to daycare together. The Greens want a law for this. Each group should have someone trained in special-needs education. New daycare centers should be built without barriers. Language support should also grow.

A training drive is planned to bring special-needs expertise into the groups. For newly built daycare centers, accessibility and disability-friendly equipment would be mandatory; for major renovations this should also be the aim. Language support programs and related staff training are to be expanded. The platform also names inclusive physical activity as a task for daycare centers.

The Greens want to strengthen democratic participation, media literacy and environmental education in daycare centers. Forest kindergartens are to receive more funding and be easier to set up.

Children should learn to have a say in daycare. They should also learn how to use media. The Greens support daycare centers that teach a lot about nature. Forest kindergartens should get more money. Setting them up should be easier.

The platform wants to support participation, a sense of self-efficacy and child-friendly complaint procedures in daycare. Programs for early media literacy are to be supported, as are daycare concepts focused on environmental education. To leave time for training and such concepts, more staff and more non-contact time are planned. For operating permits for forest kindergartens, the party wants to follow rules used in other German states.

The Greens want rainbow and blended families to be legally recognized, for example in the law on parentage and adoption. More than two people should be able to be legal parents. According to the platform, family is wherever people care for one another.

There are many kinds of families. The Greens want the law to recognize all of them. A child should be able to have more than two parents. People who are not married should also be able to take responsibility for each other.

Communities of mutual responsibility that are based neither on a romantic relationship nor on marriage should also be recognized. The platform further calls for good working and financial conditions for people who provide care or raise children. The interests of children and young people should be heard better, among other things through regular monitoring of their situation in Lower Saxony.

The Greens want to give youth organizations and youth work providers more support and revise the state youth funding law to do so. Municipalities are also to get help preserving and creating areas for play and exercise.

The Greens want to give more money to youth work. They will change a law for this. There should be more places to play and meet. Young people do not have to buy anything there.

Grants are to rise in line with need, project funds are to become permanent and red tape is to be reduced. Political education for young people and the state agency for civic education are to be strengthened. The state building code should set better requirements for play, leisure and exercise areas. Under the motto "playground instead of parking lot," the platform names youth centers, skate parks and open meeting places as public spaces where no one has to spend money.

The Greens want to implement the recommendations of the state parliament's inquiry commission on child protection and secure them with a new state child protection law. According to the platform, children and young people have a right to grow up free from violence.

Children should grow up without violence. The Greens want to make a new law for this. Day care centers, schools and sports clubs should have protection plans. Help should come early when a child is in danger.

The focus is on prevention and early intervention where children are at risk of sexualized violence or abuse. To this end, the platform calls for protection plans in day care centers, schools and sports clubs. The basis is the set of recommendations from the state parliament's inquiry commission on child protection.

The Greens oppose cuts to youth welfare services and to child and youth work. They want above all to strengthen outreach support in families, secure the youth workshops, and prevent support from ending on a young person's 18th birthday.

The Greens do not want cuts to youth welfare. Youth welfare helps children, teens and families in hard situations. Help inside families should get stronger. Young people should still get help after they turn 18.

Cooperation between public and independent providers is to be reviewed, and youth welfare law is to become more inclusive. The Greens want to accompany the setting up of ombuds offices, which handle complaints from children, young people and families. The work of the Jugendwerkstätten (youth workshops) is to be secured and their funding put on a more lasting footing. Youth welfare staff as well as people working in medicine, care, schools, the police and the courts are to be better trained in dealing with trauma. Cooperation between schools and youth welfare, especially in all-day schooling, is also to be improved.