With a festive event, the new "Family Campus Children's House" was opened in Teupitzer Straße in June 2023. Here, experts from the Marzahn-Hellersdorf Youth Welfare Office, the master's degree program in child protection at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin and the Kinderhaus Berlin Mark Brandenburg work together. The campus is intended to provide preventive support to families in the district. The initiative is based on the work of family centers. There is also a crisis facility for younger children and their families.
The goal of the project is to analyze the causes of crisis developments in families in a very concentrated and timely manner, to design and implement appropriate rapid assistance, and finally to find ways, together with the families, to change things for the better. For this reason, children will be cared for on an inpatient basis. However, parents and other persons important to the children are to remain directly involved from the beginning of the care. Specially developed structures, methods and attitudes are designed to provide rapid and reliable help. All this takes place within the framework of joint action - in particular by the youth welfare office and the crisis project, as well as various cooperation partners.
In addition, another project is involved, which designs family-integrative work approaches. If a longer phase of inpatient supported action is necessary, families are integrated in their entirety in a socio-pedagogical way and also cared for in the longer term.
Everything is to be supported within the framework of a family institute specially founded for this purpose on the campus. Training and conference rooms are set up in a way which facilitates and designs encounters. Cooperation partnerships between ASH Berlin, the Youth Welfare Office and the Children's House as well as other organizations - currently about 15 institutions from (among others) health, neighborhood management, daycare centers and schools - and experts offer concerted support for parents and children. The Family Institute is also intended to facilitate research, joint learning and on-site study in practice.
The focus is on cooperation: the connection between university, practice and public administration should find a culmination point here and radiate positively for the families in the city district.
Prof. Dr. Regina Rätz from the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Maria Fritsche from the Marzahn-Hellersdorf Youth Welfare Office and Prof. Dr. Hans-Ullrich Krause from the Kinderhaus / ASH Berlin cut the ribbon on the opening day. Now it can get started.