Linke on families

At the federal level, the Left advocates a sanction-free Kindergrundsicherung (basic child allowance) of currently 695 euros. Poor families are to get the most support, with the benefit falling as income rises.

Many children in Bremen are poor. The Left wants a basic child allowance. Poor children should get 695 euros. Families with more money get less. There should be no cuts as punishment.

The platform criticizes that the tax allowance for children relieves well-off families more than families with low incomes. For families on benefits, the child benefit is also deducted from their support. The full amount is to go to all children from poorer families. In the party's view, the existing education and participation benefits reach too few children and involve unnecessary bureaucracy.

The Left wants to fight child poverty at the state level with free services. Children and teenagers receiving basic income support are to get free admission to pools, libraries, and cultural institutions.

Poor children should be able to go to the pool for free. Libraries and culture should also be free for them. Daycare centers in poor neighborhoods should offer free breakfast. Parents should get more days off for sick children.

So far, children and teenagers on standard benefits pay 1 euro for municipal outdoor pools. This rule is to be extended to indoor pools, and admission is then to become entirely free. In addition, there is to be a publicly funded breakfast in daycare centers in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The party wants the extra child sick days introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to be made permanent at the federal level.

The Left wants more and better play areas and plans to raise city investment in them by half. Children are to be involved in the planning.

Children need good playgrounds. The city should spend more money on them. All playgrounds should be in good condition. Children from the neighborhood should have a say in the planning.

A play-area planning process is to involve local children and make the city as a whole playable. All playgrounds are to be repaired, maintained regularly, and suitable for every age. Under the state building code, developers can buy their way out of the duty to provide play areas. In the future, the city is to be allowed to spend these payments only on public play areas nearby.

The Left wants to strengthen youth welfare office staffing and expand residential youth care places over the long term. It rejects for-profit providers, and people who suffered violence in closed facilities are to be compensated.

The youth welfare office should get more staff. There should be more places for children and teenagers in need. Companies should not make profit from youth welfare. People who suffered violence in a home should get compensation.

The party supports the staffing assessment system at the youth welfare office and wants more social work tasks located there again. According to the platform, more parent-child residential facilities, a youth detox service, and emergency shelters for teenagers at risk of homelessness are needed. Street social work is to be strengthened and outpatient support during the transition to independence evaluated. Nonprofit providers are to get pedagogical freedom and funding that allows pay at collective agreement rates. For victims of violence in closed facilities, the party proposes a compensation fund.

The Left wants to continue and expand state programs for single parents so they can complete qualifications and take up work. A new care card is meant to give people who do a lot of unpaid care work priority access and discounts.

Single parents often have a hard time. The Left wants to help them more. They should be able to finish school and training. A new card should bring benefits. The card is for people who do a lot of unpaid care for others.

The platform points out that more than half of single parents received basic income support in 2020. It plans more part-time vocational training as well as long-term guidance and counseling. Childcare should also be available outside the usual hours, and children should be admitted during the running year. Easily accessible language and training programs are planned for single parents who are refugees. The care card would, for example, give priority for daycare places close to home and reduced prices at cultural and social facilities.

The Left wants Bremen to push in the Bundesrat for a law of parentage that does not disadvantage lesbian and transgender parents. Health insurers should also pay for fertility treatment for queer families.

Some children have two mothers or trans parents. These families have fewer rights today. The Left wants to change that. Health insurance should also help them have children.

The law of parentage determines who legally counts as a child's parent. In the party's view, a person's sexuality or gender identity is irrelevant to taking responsibility for a child. In Bremen, counseling services for queer families and people wishing to have children are to be better resourced. Professionals working with children and families should be trained to be aware of the situation of queer families.

By 2025, the Left wants daycare places in every district for 60 percent of children under three and for all older children until they start school. The expansion should fail neither for lack of money nor because of the debt brake.

Bremen lacks many daycare places. Poor districts lack the most. The Left wants enough places by 2025. Every child over three should have a place.

The platform justifies the expansion with educational fairness, gender equality and the fight against poverty, since school success depends heavily on background. The federal government, states and municipalities should invest more. During the acute shortage of places, temporary solutions regarding quality standards are to be worked out with providers and interest groups. Children should also be admitted during the running daycare year. The platform names the shortage of skilled staff as the biggest obstacle: in 2022, almost 600 finished places went unused for this reason.

The Left wants to create child and family centers as open contact points in the districts. They are to offer free services on health, parenting and early education. Existing open services such as play houses are to be kept and expanded.

The Left wants centers for children and families in the districts. They offer free help and advice. Parents can meet there. There should also be more family midwives.

The centers are meant to offer continuous education and care from the first year of life until school entry, with parent cafés, groups for fathers and mothers and self-help. More family midwives should work mainly in disadvantaged districts. Family houses, mothers' centers, children's and youth farms and community centers should be funded by the city according to need. Play houses on playgrounds should get more staff and be set up at further playgrounds.

The Left wants childcare to be available early, late and for parents with irregular working hours. Home-based childcare (Kindertagespflege) is to be better paid and expanded so that it helps shift workers, for example.

Some parents work early, late or in shifts. The Left wants suitable childcare for them. Each district should have one center for that. Childminders should be paid better.

One anchor facility per district should hold places for single parents and parents with unusual working hours. Home-based care in the parents' household should secure the childminder's livelihood even with one child. Material allowances and operating cost reimbursements should rise markedly, and further sites for employed childminders should be created. The mobile childcare service MoKi is to be secured and get more locations. Free part-time further training should open the path for childminders to become qualified social education staff.

The Left rejects for-profit daycare operators and construction by private investors. At least every second new daycare center should be built by the public sector; operators should be municipal, non-profit or parent associations.

The Left does not want companies to make profit from daycare. The city should build at least every second new daycare center itself. Daycare should be run by the city, non-profits or parent groups.

The platform criticizes that expansion has recently been left more to private investors, including daycare chains owned by listed corporations. A construction and renovation program for existing and new buildings is planned. The public property agency Immobilien Bremen should get more staff so that the city keeps land and buildings. Independent providers and parent associations should be funded to cover their needs, and volunteer boards relieved of administrative work. In growing districts, sites combining nursery, daycare and elementary school should be examined.

The Left wants to secure funding for open youth work in all districts and equip it better. Young people should get more room to organize themselves and more say, for example through youth councils.

Young people need places where they feel safe. The Left wants well-equipped youth centers in all districts. Young people should also be able to organize things themselves. They should have more say.

Plans include well-equipped youth centers, vacation trips and cultural and sports programs that are also open to queer, refugee and disabled youth. The city should give more support to self-organized youth culture and provide public space free of charge. The youth leader card Juleica is to be upgraded, and funds for youth councils should rise. A youth promotion and participation law modeled on Berlin's is to be examined, for instance with special leave for volunteers and a state youth promotion plan.