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Good host families should be havens. There, children recover from the traumatic states of their families of origin, in which alcohol, abuse, abuse or abandonment were part of daily life. But the threatening cloud always hangs over host families in Germany.
Birth parents, for example, after drug withdrawal, can request that the children be “returned” at any time. If things go wrong again, as is often the case, a new foster family must be found, the place of the old one now has another child. Due to the “dogma of limitation,” the child’s psyche goes on a roller coaster ride. Permanent security is lacking.
A legal reform by the Franziska Giffey Family Ministry was supposed to change these conditions and clearly regulate “permanent residence” orders. In a bill of August 26, 2020, examined by the Ministry of Family Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and experts, this objective was completely clear.
But since October 5, another new version of the bill has surprisingly been available, of which experts are appalled.
Are biological parents always the best for the child?
Currently, the law says: If parents fail as parents, the youth welfare office is the last resort to release the child to a foster family. There were 91,640 such cases in 2018. The trend is toward more. If the help has not worked, “outside accommodation” is indicated.
In German law, however, the myth persists that biological parents are “the best for a child”. Parents can even go to family court if there is a “stay order”, so there is little chance that the family of origin will look after the best interests of the child.
Typical children’s careers spring from broken relationships, the stuff that social dramas or crime novels are made of. Legal and psychological experts have opposed this incorrect practice for years.
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Prominent critics include psychiatrist Jörg Fegert from Ulm University Hospital, as well as Family Court Day in Germany, the Dialogue Forum on Aid for Foster Children, foster family associations and the Foundation for the Welfare of the Foster Child. All of them have now issued alarming statements about the new draft of the “Law for the Empowerment of Children and Young People”.
Did the CDU parliamentary group promote the changes?
Apparently the essential passages were changed at the last minute. Experts are particularly dismayed by the new wording of Section 1696 (3). According to this, the transfer of a child can even be revoked at the request of the parents if “the danger to the well-being of the child can be counteracted in another way within a reasonable period of time with regard to the development of the child, including through public support for of his return to the parents. ” . “
In simple language: children should also return to their biological parents as a test if the situation there is potentially dangerous, the main thing is that it is family help. But the helpers only spend a few hours a week. Jörg Fegert warns that the medical-ethical formula “above all do not harm” must also apply to state procedures. And the Day of the German Family Court (DFGT) warns that the bill should not become law.
Consciously taking risks for children “is not justifiable in any way” violates fundamental rights if the harm is “accepted with approval.” “For many foster children, this ethically unjustifiable experimental clause would be catastrophic,” explains lawyer Ludwig Salgo of the University of Frankfurt, an expert with the Bundestag Children’s Commission.
Glaring deficiencies in foster care
Experts believe that the driving force behind the changes comes from the Christian Democratic parliamentary group, where the rights of parents continue to be given more weight than the best interests of the child. Giffey’s ministry, which had welcomed the reform, now alleges that the controversial part of the ministerial bill came from the pen of the Justice Ministry: it was a “political compromise.”
Experts welcome many of the current child protection reforms. For example, the compulsory training of family judges and the improvement of the hearing of minors in family court, where serious mistakes are often made.
However, in foster children, the area of usually most serious cases, the shortcomings are evident, especially since the legislature is obliged to eliminate suspicions that endanger the well-being of the child.
While the Social Security Code provides that foster children are also housed “permanently”, the Civil Code, which is binding on family courts, lacks a requirement that courts can order children to stay permanently. in host families.
The Ministry of the Family takes note of the criticisms
Here is a loophole. Experts have long stopped assuming “that the interest of parents in reuniting with their child is always identical to the interest of the child,” as the lawyer Walter Pintens for European and comparative family law explains. If children were to return to the point where they were harmed, experts warned, it could also be costly to society if there were costs for hospital therapy or crisis interventions.
At the request of the Tagesspiegel, a spokesman for the Ministry of Family Affairs announced on Wednesday that the state and association hearing had concluded and that the criticisms would be “taken note”. A cabinet review is expected this year.
It was not possible to know whether the project had already undergone a preliminary examination procedure at the Foreign Ministry. The law is said to come into force in 2021 “depending on the course and timing of the parliamentary procedure of the German Bundestag.” Experts now hope that Minister Giffey, committed to protecting children, will respond to their objections.
