In the middle
An unusual shared apartment in Rheinhessen: Children and young people who can no longer be with their parents live here. After many stops, the girls have found a place to stay here.
There are scrambled eggs. Sophie puts a large portion on Mika and Lara’s plates and grabs a piece of toast. Time for lunch in the living group. The atmosphere is relaxed, the girls chat about their favorite series. But this is no ordinary shared apartment. Children and young people who can no longer be with their parents live here.
Drugs, violence, excessive demands
Sophie is 14 years old, a girl with long dark hair and blue eyes. She has been here in the youth welfare facility for a little over a year. When she looks back on the past few months, the time was “okay,” is how she describes it. “I’m actually happy the way it is right now, I’m satisfied.”
Sophie has been through a lot in her life. She was placed in a foster family when she was just one year old. Her mother is an addict and mentally ill, Sophie says as she sits with Mika on the bed in her room. The mother couldn’t take care of Sophie. Sophie stayed in the foster family until she reached puberty.
Then began a back and forth that many children here in the shared apartment are familiar with: Sophie changed living groups several times, with short phases in between with her mother until she finally came to the facility in Rheinhessen.
“We offer a home”
The residential group is located in a small village in Rheinhessen near Bad Kreuznach. In order to protect the children and young people, the director of the facility, Patrick Schulze, does not want to name the exact location. The house has a total of eight places for girls between 13 and 17 years old.
Each resident has her own room. They share a kitchen, bathroom and living room. “We offer children and young people a home,” explains Schulze, “and want to help them build stable and reliable relationships.”
Because that’s exactly what they didn’t experience in their parents’ homes. Instead, the children and young people often had to go through traumatic experiences: “Abuse, violence, addiction, neglect, these are all things that our residents have experienced. Here in the facility we support the children in processing their individual experiences,” explains Markus Spang, who works here as a social worker.
“We want to endure conflicts and accept the children as they are, with all the difficulties they bring with them,” says Spang, smiling lovingly. He likes the girls and they like him.
Children with difficult biographies
Mika is 17 and was taken from the family when she was 8 years old. “Because my father had an alcohol problem and a panic disorder and was violent, the youth welfare office said that I couldn’t stay at home because it would endanger the child’s welfare.”
An unstable time also began for Mika: first the grandparents took the child, then he went back to the parents, and finally to various residential groups. “I was thrown out several times because they couldn’t cope with me,” says Mika.
Learn to resolve conflicts in everyday life
Mika has had a permanent home here for almost three years now. With permanent caregivers – and clear rules. There is one big goal here in the group home: They don’t want to throw anyone out. But everyday life is not always easy.
There are often conflicts and physical arguments between the girls. “That’s not so unusual here in the group,” explains educator Spang, “because there are girls for whom it was important for their survival in their old environment, the ability to defend themselves. And we don’t have any girls who were depressed either sitting in the corner, but girls who have power and are strong.”
Close contact with youth welfare office, school and parents
The living group is sponsored by the Evangelical Association for Inner Mission in Nassau (EVIM), which operates more than 60 social institutions in Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate. The educators in the residential groups work closely with the environment of the children and young people in their care: with the school, the training center, but also with doctors, therapists, the youth welfare office and finally the children’s parents. The decision to remove children from their families is often made together with their legal guardians, explains facility manager Patrick Schulze.
The facility wants to be a home for the girls – exactly what many have never known before.
Taking into care by the youth welfare office is increasing
The legal basis for this can be found in the Social Security Code. It states that parents are entitled to help with their upbringing if “upbringing that is in the best interests of the child or young person cannot be guaranteed”.
The decision is then made together with the youth welfare office and the children to place the child in a youth welfare facility. However, if children are at acute risk because they are exposed to violence or are being neglected, the youth welfare office must take the children into immediate care, even against the will of the parents.
Nationwide, the number of minors being taken into care by youth welfare offices is increasing. This emerges from the 2024 child and youth welfare report. At the same time, the number of childcare places has not increased.
Shortage of skilled workers in child and youth welfare
The problem is made worse by the fact that many youth welfare facilities are understaffed and are desperately looking for staff. “The socio-educational labor market has been swept empty,” says the child and youth welfare report.
Inquiries from youth welfare offices from all over Germany
Patrick Schulze is also struggling with the fact that the demand for places in his facility is much greater than the space he can offer. “Our sponsoring association receives at least 15 inquiries from youth welfare offices every week,” says Schulze, “from all over the country. We cannot meet the demand.”
In addition, staff is scarce. The educators in his residential group work in shifts, always in pairs, there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If someone is missing at short notice, they often have problems filling the holes in the roster.
More help through prevention
Schulze would like to see that children who are in acute need do not have to be distributed to youth welfare facilities throughout Germany, as is currently the case. “At the moment the children are being sent to facilities all over Germany, from south to north, that cannot be the goal.”
He and his colleagues believe that more should be done for prevention: “As a youth welfare service, we need to help families on site a lot more and see early on what help they need,” said Schulze. So that fewer children have to leave their families.
After all, almost all children and young people long for good contact with their parents, explains the educator, and often protect them even if they have experienced a lot of suffering in their lives.
14-year-old Sophie also has only one big wish: “I dream of being able to move back in with my mother at some point.”