What parents REALLY pay for in full-day care
In a group on Facebook, I read a post by Peggy in which she writes about the situation in all-day care. This post moved me a lot and I am happy that I can share it with you on my blog. Enjoy reading Peggy's text. (Natalie.)
Everywhere we stumble upon the topic of staff shortages in KiTas... it makes me furious! Obviously with the emergency of the educators only referring to the activity field KiTa one concerns oneself, thereby this range is still promoted politically.
But the other ranges, in which it concerns support and promotion of children, fall in each regard under the table. And thereby it is in these ranges (thereby) much, much more dramatically!
This is a cry for help that is so urgent because many of us are forced to endanger the well-being of hundreds of children every day! And we work to the point of pathological exhaustion.
I work as an educator in the open all-day care and I am afraid. I am afraid of the development that care - which is no longer care - means for every single child every day.
We educators are trained for group sizes of 25 children. But here three specialists look after 190 children at peak times and we do not even fill these job shares with 100% each. Only one specialist, who also has to handle all the bureaucratic management tasks, works full time in our facility.
I am afraid of a legal claim, because the number of children will also increase in the coming year, under the same "retention conditions". Our facility, which was designed as an after-school care center for just under 50 children, now has 190 children from 18 different nations enrolled, so we have to outsource with the same staffing levels. The children get to see nothing but their classroom all day - if it is available at all.
In our case, the children are cared for outside in all weathers because there is no room for them inside and there is no staffing ratio or admission freeze! Because there is no separate operating license for this form of care, but officially the operating license of the schools applies.
However, we work independently and in the case of a child welfare endangerment in or by facilities, the report is not followed up due to this. Also controls do not take place. Youth Welfare Offices are only responsible for children in facilities that require an operating license, and this does NOT include all-day care!
We do not have a chair for nearly every third child, not enough toilets, let alone free capacities to create important retreat opportunities as a balance to the school day.
In "after-school" times, there were clear regulations for this. Even for chickens, there are regulations about how many animals may be kept in how many square meters. These regulations do not exist for all-day care!?
For this mass of children, we are only three educators. In many facilities it is even worse. We are "assisted" over lunch by untrained staff who are only roughly trained. But they can't do the job of conducting parent and teacher interviews, participating in round tables with youth welfare offices and foster families, or pedagogical didactic planning. Not to mention the guidance and training of future educators as part of their education.
Children who suffer from neglect, concentration or learning difficulties are hardly recognized. For this a qualitative education is necessary and not the condition to have given birth to a child itself and that is also good. We carry the employees in addition and iron out if necessary what does not go and could have a negative effect on the children.
In addition, the hourly capacity of the auxiliary staff is needed during school hours, so that we even have to manage without this staff during vacation care and can only rely on interns, and this despite the fact that we have to cover continuous opening hours of over ten hours during the vacations.
The support of individual children is no longer possible! Learning difficulties are not recognized, children are not supported. Due to the situation, we are so far away from the important language support that we can only convey the contents theoretically to the trainees - nothing of this reaches the children.
In recent years, I have not been able to read a book with the children because the framework conditions simply no longer allow it. Let alone a certain ability to observe, which would be necessary to recognize that a child is exposed to domestic problems such as assault or neglect. This includes children stranded in a wide variety of foster homes, children who report being beaten at home, children suffering from parental separation, children who are afraid to go home with their report card, and children who feel bullied or just "alone" and these are just a few examples from the last few years.
And I am also afraid of this. Of the fact that we are supposed to implement inclusion in a profound way, which we want to but can't. We drive the large masses of children like cattle from one point to another. Herd them through the food situation in stages - because there aren't nearly enough tables and seats.
Then we herd them under time pressure to the AGs, homework supervision or afternoon school. And are reprimanded because society feels disturbed by the noise of the many children, because we no longer know where to go first. How am I supposed to decide between the child who is kicking another one just under the table, the child who needs to get his diet food, the child whose tummy hurts, and the child who is having trouble finding a seat with his hard-to-handle tray?
That's the normal daily stress of just eating, but then nothing can get in the way. A fire alarm, a nosebleed, a dropped glass, a staff member missing, a child not returning from the bathroom, or a phone call from a parent.
We care for children whose names we don't know weeks later. 80% of the parents I have never seen. I am also afraid of this: What happens if we lose track or simply forget that a child is allergic to oranges or is not allowed to eat something specific for individual reasons? We no longer have the opportunity to talk to children to get to the bottom of problems.
In addition, the working conditions are more difficult. We don't have a lounge or break room, and we can't wear hearing protection against the noise, because otherwise we can't hear a crying child. Instead, we "look after" the children in rooms that are not air-conditioned, which means 30 degrees and more in the summer months.
There is no heat-free period for students and staff in the all-day area. I therefore openly complain that the well-being of children in all-day care is endangered every day by neglect, lack of encouragement, noise, too little space and time for individual learning, and by the failure to recognize other factors in children's lives that endanger their well-being.
At the federal level, it's all about daycare and improving early learning. But what about the age that follows. Do children only become important when it comes to PISA scores? Education doesn't just happen in KiTas.
We have children who kiss for the first time, are in love but also smoke for the first time, go after each other with knives in the classroom, discuss whether the Hitler salute is good or bad, whether a child with a different background can be a friend, and who are simply completely unsure of who they actually are themselves.
I hope and wish - in the name of all educators in all-day care - that finally someone is there to make sure that something changes very quickly, because we "lose" too many children every day due to these conditions, because we no longer have the possibility to make pedagogical qualities useful for them and because we simply can't!
It is not about better payment, because what we earn, we will never get paid. But I would like to see framework conditions that enable us to work qualitatively.
As long as something changes, please, also with regard to the recruitment of future specialists. Which young professional is willing to work under these conditions? We are working as trainers in the facility and no longer know where to get the capacity to adequately meet the task, because everything else is eating us up.
And the overtime is going up and up and up, for which we are still being reprimanded. The salary really doesn't attract any newcomers, and even I wouldn't be able to muster that much idealism if I were faced with the choice of profession again today.
The politics from countries and federation push the responsibility of itself, with the reason that the municipalities would be responsible for this and these can switch and rule, as they want to arrange it (as economically as possible).
After all, there are no adequate regulations for all-day operation. The question also arises as to whether the mandatory operating permit is not being ignored as long as the expansion of all-day care is being pushed forward as quickly as possible. Vacant positions have not been advertised for years, or only at such a reduced level that it is impossible for educators to apply for such small positions.
This paves the way for the statement that unfortunately no one has been found, so that one "must" fall back on unskilled assistants. These are cheaper. Worse grouped, so that four unskilled unqualified forces replace a specialist (on paper). This is a scandal!
Just as it is a scandal that parents pay for this inferior care. Parents pay a lot of money for endangering the welfare of their children! Commitments to action from risk assessments, as well as overload notices, are not worth the paper they are written on.
Incidentally, the office of our Ministry of Family Affairs has had this letter on the table for months, with the response that the municipalities and states are responsible. Despite the knowledge of the situation, the legal claim for all-day care has now been gleefully proclaimed without any improvement measures.
It is not region-dependent where these conditions prevail. It affects ALL GTBs in ALL municipalities of ALL federal states thanks to the political switches.
We are not the ones to be wished well. It is the parents who are told how well their children will do in all-day care and how reassured they can go about their business. And it is the children of these parents who are to be wished well, because they have to put up with the noise, the stress and the shortage. Every day and all over Germany, because others earn good money with it.
Those who collect the contributions and the federal government, which is happy about the tax revenues, which these "calmed" parents additionally flush into the coffers. Parents bring money. Professionals and children cost money. Unfortunately, most parents do not know by which "qualities and qualifications" their child is currently being cared for or that their all-day care is not controlled in the case.
If parents do not band together NOW and take action against this, it will be much, much worse for all children in the country! NOW the course is being set for the legal entitlement. NOW the parents have (still) the chance against these conditions to go forward. Only the parents have the power to bring about change. Therefore this may be shared without bad conscience as often as it likes.
Please forgive my long text! Thank you for making the effort to read this.
Image Sources:I picked out all the images used for the article on unsplash.com. Here follows a detailed listing of the links:
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