Linke on families

The Left wants more support for single parents, who according to the platform are mostly women and often poor. A state action plan is to implement the results of a round table set up by the party's parliamentary group. A coordination office at state level would be added.

The Left wants to help single parents more. A state plan should make it easier for them to find work. There should be flexible child care and more advice services. A new state office should organize the help.

The action plan is meant to ease single parents' access to the regular labor market, including through part-time work and flexible hours. Family-friendly companies are to receive targeted support, and better protection against discrimination is to apply in hiring. Flexible and reliable child care is planned, including services for single parents whose children need care. Counseling is to be expanded and prevention, especially for mothers' health, is to be funded.

The Left wants to raise funding for child and youth welfare and youth work considerably and prevent cuts. These services are to be recognized as mandatory municipal tasks and secured everywhere. A new state youth welfare act is to enable inclusive youth services.

The Left wants more money for youth clubs and youth services. The state should not cut here. Towns should have to offer these services reliably. Staff should get permanent jobs with union-scale pay. Young people should have more places of their own to meet.

The Jugendpauschale (a state grant to municipalities for youth services) is to rise, be adjusted annually to costs and be tied to criteria such as a minimum staffing ratio. Youth services planning is to start from young people's needs, determined with their participation, rather than from budget conditions. Permanent jobs covered by collective agreements are to be the norm, and residential facilities are to get more staff. Training capacity for social work and childcare professions is to grow, with training free of charge and subsidized. Ombuds counseling for conflicts with youth welfare offices is to be better funded. Young people are not to be pushed out of public space but given more self-determined spaces.

The Left wants children and young people in Saxony to get free lunches in daycare and school, free local public transit, and free access to cultural and sports facilities. It frames this as a matter of social justice. It also wants more public spaces for play, sports and youth culture.

The Left wants to help children and young people. Lunch in daycare and school should be free. Buses and trains should be free for them too. The same goes for music schools, libraries and sports facilities. There should be more playgrounds and sports areas.

The platform lists free lunches, free local transit and free cultural offerings such as music schools, libraries and sports facilities for all young people in Saxony. The Left also calls for more public playgrounds, sports and calisthenics areas, legal graffiti walls and skate parks. Young people's interests are to carry more weight in political decisions, especially in planning and construction. The party objects to labeling youth cultures as disruptive or as vandalism.

The Left calls for a Kindergrundsicherung (basic child benefit) that lifts all children out of poverty. In the party's view, the version adopted by the federal government does not meet the original goal. In Saxony, the family pass and counseling for families are to be expanded.

The Left wants to fight child poverty. It calls for a basic child benefit. That is money from the state for children. No child should be poor anymore. The family pass should also help more people.

The platform calls the federal government's basic child benefit a case of false labeling because, it says, nothing remains of the original aim. For Saxony's family pass, both the offerings and the group of people eligible are to grow. The Left wants to expand counseling services for families. It also demands regular statewide reporting on poverty among children and young people.

The Left wants to revise Saxony's state youth welfare law and bring it in line with changed federal law. Many groups are to take part in the reform, above all children and young people themselves.

The Left wants to renew the youth welfare law in Saxony. Many people should have a say. These include providers, associations and experts. Above all, children and young people should state their wishes.

The new law is to incorporate the 2021 changes to Book VIII of the Social Code and the federal Children and Youth Strengthening Act. The platform cites Brandenburg as the model for the process. Public and independent providers, researchers and associations are to be involved. The party wants to hear from young people how they picture a state that is friendly to children and youth.

The Left wants Saxony to push at the federal level for children's rights in the Basic Law and to write them into the Saxon constitution as well. This is meant to oblige politicians to consider the concerns of children and young people in all decisions.

The Left wants children's rights in Germany's constitution. They should also be in the constitution of Saxony. Then politicians must always think of children and young people. New laws should be checked first: What do they mean for young people?

The rule is meant to truly strengthen children's rights and not fall behind the current standard. The program stresses that this must not be a purely symbolic act. As a first step, the party wants to introduce a youth check for draft laws, following Thuringia's example. Children with special support or inclusion needs are also to have a guaranteed right to participation and to a good upbringing.

The Left wants to strengthen child protection at all levels and fight every form of violence against children. Child and youth welfare services are to be equipped according to need. The party rejects placing children and young people in locked facilities.

The Left wants to protect children better from violence. There should be prevention and fixed protection plans. Youth welfare services should get enough money. Children and young people should not be locked up.

Cases of violence are to be handled with a focus on the child and with sensitivity toward those affected. The program names verbal, physical and sexualized violence. Because the party sees poverty as a risk to child welfare too, it counts anti-poverty measures as part of child protection. Partial and full residential care services are to be funded in a crisis-proof way. Bringing back locked placement is explicitly rejected.

The Left wants to raise the allowance paid in the youth volunteer service and rejects cuts to volunteer services. Open and democratic youth work is to be supported, with better working conditions and higher pay for staff.

The Left wants a higher allowance for young people in volunteer service. There should be no cuts there. Youth work should get more support. The staff there should earn more.

The program argues that early civic engagement lays the groundwork for democratic education. Instead of cuts, volunteer services are to receive more money. Democratic youth work and youth education are to be funded. Self-managed youth clubs and autonomous youth centers are to be strengthened.