SPD on families

The SPD wants to begin introducing a free lunch for all children in daycare centers and schools. The meal is meant to be healthy and cost neither children nor parents anything.

The SPD wants a lunch for all children. This applies to daycare and school. The food should be healthy. Parents and children should not pay for it.

The platform announces that the party will start introducing free lunches. Every child in Thuringia is to receive one healthy meal a day in daycare and at school. The SPD presents the plan as part of its goal of easing the financial burden on families.

The SPD wants to fully abolish parental fees for daycare and after-school care (Hort), ideally from January 2025. It bases this on its conviction that education, from daycare to a master craftsman's certificate or master's degree, should in principle be free.

Parents should no longer pay for daycare and after-school care. This should apply from January 2025. The SPD believes education should be free for everyone. That goes from daycare to university.

The platform's stated goal is that parents pay no childcare fees from January 2025. Free care is not supposed to come at the expense of quality. According to the SPD, falling birth rates should not lead to job cuts but should be used to improve the ratio of staff to children.

The SPD wants a binding step-by-step plan to improve the ratio of staff to children in daycare centers. The long-term goal is the expert-recommended ratios of 1:3 for children under three and 1:7.5 for older children. In addition, center management is to be strengthened and social work introduced in daycare centers.

Daycare centers should have more staff per child. The SPD wants a fixed plan with several steps. Experts recommend one staff member for at most 3 small children. For older children it is 7 to 8. There should also be social workers in daycare centers.

First, the minimum ratio for children aged three and older is to be set uniformly at 1:12, then the ratio for two- to three-year-olds at 1:6. The expert recommendations are to be reached within the coming ten years, secured by a cross-party pact. Non-contact time for educators is to rise, managers are to get more time, and providers should be able to cover sick leave with extra staff. The SPD keeps the guarantee of up to ten hours of care per day. Daycare centers are to develop into parent-child centers (ThEKiZ), and the pilot project "Vielfalt vor Ort begegnen" is to receive permanent funding.

The SPD wants to push at the federal level for a "family working time" model that lets both parents reduce their hours with wage compensation. In Thuringia, small and mid-sized businesses in particular are to get support in adapting working conditions to families.

Parents should be able to work less and still have enough money. This should apply equally to mothers and fathers. The SPD wants to push for this at the federal level. In Thuringia it wants to help small companies. The companies should allow working from home, for example.

In the SPD's view, Thuringia's businesses must adapt to the needs of parents. The platform cites family-friendly working time models and working from home as examples. Family working time is to be introduced at the federal level. The SPD also wants to work with unions for broader collective bargaining coverage and higher wages to improve family incomes.

The SPD wants to keep supporting open child and youth work and youth associations. The per-capita youth grant to municipalities (Jugendpauschale) is to rise regularly by law, and an investment program is to modernize youth facilities.

The SPD wants to keep supporting youth work. Towns get money from the state for this. This money should rise regularly. That should be written into a law. Youth clubs and education centers should be modernized.

The state youth support plan is to be fully funded according to need. The investment program targets open youth work facilities and Thuringia's youth education centers. The SPD also wants youth welfare offices and providers to have enough staff paid at collectively agreed rates. In child-raising support services, needs are to be assessed on a mandatory basis, ombuds offices secured and residents' councils in care homes strengthened. A funding program is to support digitalization in child and youth services.