Linke on families

The Left wants to guarantee single parents 24 months of Elterngeld (parental allowance) and to grant the Unterhaltsvorschuss (state advance on child support) unconditionally to everyone who needs it. It cites the high poverty risk of single-parent families, most of which are headed by women.

The Left wants to help single parents more. They should get parental allowance for 24 months. Everyone who needs the child support advance should get it. This is money from the state when the other parent does not pay. The party says single parents are poor especially often.

The child benefit would no longer be offset against the child support advance. The cut to the parental allowance would be reversed. Employers would release single parents from work with continued pay when emergency childcare is needed, with the federal and state governments helping to fund this. According to the platform, one in five families in Saxony-Anhalt is a single-parent family.

The Left wants to abolish parental fees for daycare and give every child an unrestricted entitlement to ten hours of care per day. A free lunch in daycare centers and family daycare is to be added.

The Left wants parents to pay nothing for daycare anymore. Every child should have a right to 10 hours of care a day. Lunch should be free for all children. The state should cover the costs.

The legal entitlement to ten hours of full-day care is to apply to every child without restriction. The state is to fully make up for the parental fees that fall away. All children in daycare centers and family daycare are to get a free lunch, and drinking fountains are to be funded in the facilities. The program argues that early childhood education lays the foundation for later schooling, health and participation.

The Left wants more staff per child in nurseries and kindergartens and a new funding system for daycare. Planning and funding are to rest with the counties and independent cities, and the municipalities' share is to be dropped.

The Left wants more staff in daycare centers. In nurseries one staff member should care for 3 children. In kindergarten it should be 7.5 children. Municipalities should no longer pay a share. The state should cover the extra costs.

The aim is a ratio of 1:3 in nurseries and 1:7.5 in kindergartens, with the state fully covering the higher costs. The new funding system is to be based on actual staff costs. Childcare workers are to get working time for preparation and follow-up. For family daycare, agreements with youth welfare offices on services, pay and quality are planned. The daycare quality framework is to be applied uniformly statewide, and responsibility for early childhood education and youth welfare is to move to a ministry for education and youth.

The Left calls for a Kindergrundsicherung (basic child benefit) of at least 630 euros a month for every child, without sanctions and as a stand-alone benefit. According to the platform, family planning should not depend on income.

Every child should get money from the state. The Left wants at least 630 euros a month. No one should be allowed to cut this money. Applying should be easy.

The benefit is meant to protect against poverty and be available to all children. Applying should be easy and involve little red tape. The platform places the demand under the goal of a poverty-free, family-friendly Saxony-Anhalt and addresses it to the federal level.

The Left wants parents to be able to apply for Elterngeld (parental allowance) with the midwife's birth confirmation, and wants foster parents treated equally for this benefit. It also calls for uniform grants for foster families and a round table for single parents.

Parents should be able to apply for parental allowance faster. The midwife's certificate should be enough. Foster parents should also get parental allowance. Single parents should have a say in politics.

By law, the application would no longer be tied to the birth certificate, so that waiting times in overloaded municipalities get shorter. Foster parents would be given equal status for parental allowance under federal law. The lists of one-time grants and subsidies for foster families would be uniform statewide, so that place of residence makes no difference. At the round table, single parents would review political decisions and their effects themselves. This would lead to a long-term action plan with concrete measures.

The Left wants better staffing at youth welfare offices, ombuds offices in every county and statewide minimum standards for youth services planning. The aim is to protect children better and let them grow up under comparable conditions everywhere.

The Left wants to protect children better. Youth welfare offices should get more staff. Every county should have an ombuds office. Families get help there in disputes with the office. The same rules for youth services should apply across the state.

A quality dialogue between the state and municipalities is meant to improve staffing at youth welfare offices. The Frühe Hilfen (early support) and child protection networks would grow, along with preventive and easy-to-reach services, especially in rural areas. Child-raising support services, child and youth psychiatry and public health offices would get fixed cooperation structures and managed handovers. Municipalities would receive financial relief in this field. County plans would follow minimum standards and be aligned with a statewide youth services plan. Agreements with daycare providers would follow uniform rules, for example on management hours and cleaning.

The Left wants help for children and families to arrive early and reliably. It proposes an easily reachable first point of contact, fixed deadlines and binding handovers between youth services, the public health service, schools and family courts. In cases of domestic violence, protecting the child would come first.

The Left wants to protect children better. Families should get help fast. There should be one place that is easy to reach. Offices, schools and courts should work together better. Children should get medical care even without health insurance.

The public health service would become the central hub for prevention, with guides into mental health care and stronger early support statewide, including family midwives. In proceedings, children would be heard and decisions explained in plain terms. Teams drawn from several professions would work permanently in daycare centers and schools, and clubs and youth centers would have a designated trusted contact person. Children and young people without health insurance would be treated first, with costs settled afterward. Services would be multilingual, in plain language and open regardless of residency status, including in refugee housing.

The Left wants to anchor child and youth work, with minimum standards, as a legal entitlement in the state's child and youth services law. State funding would rise and grow automatically each year. Staff would be paid according to public-sector pay scales, because the platform sees their situation as often insecure.

The Left wants to secure youth work by law. All young people should have a right to it. The state should give more money for it. The money should go up every year. Staff should be paid better and have secure jobs.

Funding for municipal programs would rise each year by 2.5 percent or at least by the rate of inflation, as set by law. The money would be distributed 85 percent by the number of children and young people and 15 percent by a county's area, to take rural regions into account. For funded providers, youth associations and counseling centers, public-sector collective pay rules would be the basis for wages, combined with multi-year funding agreements. Minimum staffing standards would be developed for educational child and youth protection, and youth media protection would become a fixed part of youth services planning. A permanent staff position is planned for the youth associations.

The Left wants to secure youth clubs and other open meeting places with fixed opening hours and stable staffing. Vacant buildings would be turned into youth spaces together with young people. School camps and vacation programs would be open to everyone regardless of how much money a family has.

The Left wants more places for young people. Youth clubs should be open in the evenings and during school breaks too. Empty buildings should become meeting places. Vacation trips should not depend on parents' money. Nobody should have to show an ID.

Youth spaces would cooperate with schools, clubs and cultural institutions on a binding basis. The Kinder- und Jugendring (children and youth council) and youth associations would receive more money. Where young people's housing is unstable, transitional housing and counseling would keep them connected to school and training. Open programs would be usable without ID or formal proof, and mobile "bureaucracy guides" would help families with paperwork. Access would be multilingual and independent of residency status, including for children in refugee housing.

The Left wants to disclose each year which services exist for children and where the gaps are. A children's rights budget would show in the state budget which funds improve participation. Binding prevention chains would settle responsibilities and deadlines so that families are not sent from office to office.

The Left wants a report every year on services for children. The report should show where something is missing. The budget should show which money helps children. Money should go where the need is greatest. Offices should have clear duties and deadlines.

Every municipality and county would present a public participation overview covering reach, travel times, cost barriers and language access, among other things. Money would be distributed according to social conditions and accessibility and adjusted each year. An investment path would name missing places such as youth clubs or youth education centers, fund them and set a timeline for each region. Collective wage agreements would apply in funded programs. The plan also calls for recording who does not take up benefits, and for explicitly including children in refugee housing without stigmatizing them.