SPD on families

The SPD wants to strengthen early childhood education and gradually improve staff-to-child ratios in nurseries, kindergartens, home-based childcare and after-school care. Social work in daycare centers and family centers are to be expanded, especially at sites with major problems.

The SPD wants better daycare centers. Staff should have more time for each child. There should be more social work in daycare centers. Centers with many problems should get special help.

Because the number of children is falling, more staff are to care for the same number or fewer children. This is meant to make inclusive daycare for all children possible. The SPD is sticking to its existing strategy of raising quality step by step, since both money and trained staff are needed. Daycare centers are also to be places where parents find someone to talk to about raising their children.

The SPD wants to make work and family life easier to combine as a response to the labor shortage. This includes childcare close to home, more all-day schools, affordable care and four-day-week models.

The SPD wants work and family to fit together better. There should be childcare close to home. There should be more all-day schools. In hard jobs, a four-day week should be possible.

The platform points out that every second working woman in Saxony works part-time because women take on most family work. Families and single parents are to be supported through childcare, all-day schools and care services. Good public transit, short trips to public offices, digital services and remote work are meant to save workers time. The four-day week is to become possible above all in physically demanding jobs and shift work; the platform says it secures family time and raises productivity.

The SPD wants to give single parents more support with childcare, training and work, and bundle all measures in a “Pact for Single Parents.” The Landeserziehungsgeld (state child-raising allowance) is to be turned into a single-parent benefit.

Some parents raise their children alone. The SPD wants to help them more. The state's child-raising allowance should become a benefit for single parents. All the help should be part of one shared pact.

According to the platform, all political actors should work across ministries to improve single parents' living and working conditions. More support is planned for childcare, finishing school, vocational training, university studies and returning to work. The pact is to be drawn up through dialogue. The SPD also wants to help daycare centers offer care early in the morning and late in the afternoon, which the platform says single parents especially depend on.

The SPD wants to abolish parents' fees for childcare entirely, arguing that education should be free of charge. Because childcare quality is also supposed to improve, it plans to proceed in stages, starting with a cap on fees.

Parents pay for daycare today. The SPD wants to get rid of these fees completely. This should happen step by step. First there should be an upper limit on the fees.

The platform names a cap on daycare fees as the first step. After that, after-school care, kindergartens, nurseries and home-based childcare are to become entirely free. The SPD justifies the gradual approach by saying that better childcare quality matters to it at the same time.

The SPD defines family as any shared way of life in which people care for and take responsibility for one another. All of these forms are to be accepted, supported and funded in Saxony.

For the SPD, there are many kinds of family. Family is where people care for each other. That is true with or without marriage. All families in Saxony should get help and support.

The platform explicitly names couples with and without a marriage certificate, blended and rainbow families, single parents and multigenerational households. The SPD wants to strengthen multigenerational centers and everyday companions for young and old. The party sees parents and educational institutions as partners in raising children, both of whom should be strengthened in their roles.

The SPD wants to better equip youth welfare offices and develop Saxony's child protection plan into an overall strategy across ministries. More contact points are also to be created for children who have experienced violence.

Children should grow up safe and healthy. Youth welfare offices should get more resources. Agencies and counseling centers should work together better. There should be more places to go for children who have suffered violence.

The platform treats youth welfare offices as the central bodies for children's well-being. Counseling and intervention centers are to be networked with the responsible agencies and institutions. The Childhood House approach is to be rolled out statewide: child-friendly outpatient centers where several disciplines care for children and young people who suffered sexualized or physical violence. The networks for child protection and early support are to be developed further. Data protection rules are to be designed so that parents, doctors, daycare centers and schools can cooperate effectively.

The SPD wants to turn Saxony's child and youth welfare law into a children and youth law that puts children's rights at the center. Politics and public administration are to be guided by the interests of young people.

The SPD wants a new law for children and young people. The law should strengthen children's rights. Children should get protection and support. They should also be able to take part. The well-being of the child should come first.

The new law is meant to expand the rights to protection, participation and support, with the child's best interests taking priority. In youth policy, the SPD puts the emphasis on rights and free spaces so that young people can practice independence and responsibility. The platform justifies this with the goal that young people see their future in Saxony.

The SPD wants to secure local child and youth work with a state program so that it survives even when municipal budgets are tight. Youth welfare offices are to get enough staff, and social work in daycare centers and schools is to grow.

The SPD wants to give more money for youth work. Towns and villages should be able to keep services for children. Even when they have little money. Youth welfare offices should have enough staff. There should be more social work in daycare centers and schools.

The Jugendpauschale (a flat-rate state grant that helps pay for local youth work) is to keep rising and be modernized; funding above the local level will be revised. Youth associations, youth clubs, leisure centers and self-run spaces are to be preserved and supported. The SPD wants to expand social work in daycare centers and schools so that every child and teenager has someone to turn to, and to fund social work outside of school reliably. For inclusive child and youth services, the platform calls for more resources and staff training.

The SPD wants to fund a statewide network of youth centers and leisure facilities. The Jugendpauschale (the state's per-capita youth work grant) is to be secured regardless of population trends, and funding periods are to be longer.

The SPD wants to fund youth centers all over Saxony. Young people should have places to spend free time together. The money should be safe even if there are fewer young people. Funding should run for longer periods.

The platform argues that young people need open spaces and shared places for experiences. The Jugendpauschale, the state money for municipal youth work, is to be made resilient to demographic change. Longer funding periods are also to be made possible at the municipal level. This is meant to give facilities stability.