Parents Initiative
In the area of child day care, the term parent initiative (Elternini, parent initiative day care center but also children's shop ) is synonymous with an association supported by parents that offers self-organized child day care. Most of the parents' initiatives in Germany are such associations for day-care centers ; Nationwide, 7500 parenting initiatives of this kind look after more than 200,000 children.
In addition, the term parents' initiative can also refer to other organizational associations of parents with a common goal. Examples of this are alternative schools founded by parents or the numerous parenting initiatives of parents of (chronically) ill children or children at risk of disability, such as B. the “parents' initiative for children with cancer”.
Parents' initiatives are mostly non-profit associations (e.V.). The form of the association enables the personal liability of association members and honorary board members to be reduced. Sometimes parents 'initiatives develop into non-profit limited liability companies , which then, however, usually no longer correspond to the actual nature of a parents' initiative due to the limited participation of parents and professional management.
Parents' initiatives in day care
Today's parenting initiatives in daycare have their roots in the anti-authoritarian children's shop movement of the sixties and seventies. They offered and still offer a self-determined alternative to municipal and church institutions. They were also widespread due to the lack of kindergarten and crèche places. The children's shop and parents' initiative movement, however, also had a considerable influence on early childhood education as a whole in Germany thanks to its educational reform approaches.
Organizationally, the parents' initiatives are represented in day care by voluntary board members elected by member parents in general meetings. They represent the association to the outside world and take on all administrative duties as an employer. In addition to membership fees, the member parents usually also have to work so-called parenting hours. In addition to the aspect of cost savings, this also serves to promote solidarity with one another.
Advantages and disadvantages of parenting initiatives
For the parents, day-care centers established by parents' initiatives offer the advantage that they partially enable kindergarten and especially crèche places. For the municipalities , day-care centers established by parents' initiatives offer the advantage that they can include the kindergarten places created in this way in their requirement plan and thus more easily meet the statutory entitlement to kindergarten places. At the same time, the costs of providing financial support for places in a day-care center run by a parents' initiative are generally lower than for state institutions.
Since the parents' obligations to participate in these initiatives are usually associated with considerably higher rights of participation, the parents have a much greater influence on the quality of care and support for their children.
Because the individual parents' initiatives are not financially affiliated with a large national association such as a church, they have to generate all the costs associated with running a day-care center and not cushioned by state funding from their own resources and thus from association contributions. That is why childcare places at parenting initiatives are usually more expensive for parents than in municipal or church facilities. In addition, in most such day-care centers, additional cooperation from parents is required. The design and scope of this collaboration (“parent work hours”) is very different in the respective parent initiatives. Theoretically, it can relate to every aspect of such a facility and accordingly ranges from support, shopping, cleaning, repairs, gardening, wage and salary accounting, bookkeeping, account management, application for and billing of subsidies and monitoring of compliance with the legal requirements for the operation of Daycare centers through to the formulation and implementation of the educational concept of the facility.
Since the board members of the day-care centers run by parents' initiatives change regularly (mostly at the latest when the children of the previous board start school and leave the facility), there is a permanent need for advice from new board members. The Federal Working Group on Parents 'Initiatives (BAGE) was therefore founded a few decades ago as a nationwide organization of umbrella associations for parents' initiatives that organize childcare themselves. The individual contact points of the BAGE offer board members in particular, but also educators advice and concrete support on site.
Parents' initiatives in the field of children with cancer
After the German Cancer Aid was founded in 1974 by the doctor Mildred Scheel , public awareness of the need for special care options had risen sharply. Parents and families initiated the establishment of the family house in close proximity to university clinics and large hospitals. A new first "family house" of the most modern design was opened in August 2018 in Thuringia. The impetus for the construction was the “Parents' Initiative for Children with Cancer Jena e. V. ".
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Elterninitiativen (BAGE) e. V. In: bage.de, accessed on November 21, 2019.
- ↑ Parents' initiative for children with cancer Jena e. V. ( Memento from September 1, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on August 31, 2018.