SPD on families

The SPD wants to expand youth work in the state. County-level youth councils would get more money and staff, and young people would receive their own budgets for projects. Youth clubs and self-organized spaces would continue to be supported.

The SPD wants to do more for young people. Youth groups should get more money and more staff. Young people should have their own money for projects. Youth clubs should be repaired and supported.

The county children's and youth councils (Kreis-Kinder- und Jugendringe) would be better funded and staffed to secure training, coordination, and networking locally. Supervised open spaces, youth clubs, and self-organized spaces such as the Queer*Spaces pilot project would be further strengthened. According to the platform, more than 15 million euros from the federal special fund are available for renovating youth clubs and should now be put to use. Youth meeting places should be digitally connected and offer affordable activities in the evening and in rural areas as well. The SPD also wants to expand digital and international youth work, including better funding terms and new exchange formats.

The SPD wants to pool counseling services for families and develop them into family counseling centers. Family policy should reflect the diversity of family forms. The state would also back a Bundesrat initiative against discrimination toward rainbow families and queer people.

Families should get help in one place. The SPD wants to create family counseling centers for this. The SPD says there are many kinds of families. Rainbow families should not be treated worse.

The platform explicitly counts single parents, blended families, rainbow families, and foster families as families. It names financial worries, changing media use, and fragile social networks as pressures. The pooled counseling is meant to provide one-stop support. Later, a digital, accessible platform would be added for applying for key family and social benefits. Saxony-Anhalt would support a Bundesrat initiative to reduce disadvantages for rainbow families and queer people.

The SPD wants to strengthen Frühe Hilfen (early support for families), family social work, and family education. Early support is meant to relieve families, prevent risks to child welfare, and limit later youth welfare costs. Houses of Juvenile Justice would also be made possible.

Families should get help early. This is meant to protect children. The SPD wants to expand social work for families. When young people commit crimes, police, prosecutors, and youth services should work together in one place.

Early support services accompany families from the start and, according to the platform, would be further strengthened. Volunteer guardianships would be promoted and the responsible specialist office developed further. Work with boys and young men would be strengthened structurally. To relieve youth welfare offices, information on child and youth services would be provided statewide. In Houses of Juvenile Justice, police, prosecutors, and youth services would handle cases involving underage suspects together.