Erich Kästner Children's Village

The Erich Kästner Children's Village is a remedial and therapeutic children's home. It was founded in 1974 in Mainbernheim , Lower Franconia . Shortly before his death, the writer Erich Kästner gave permission to name the children's village after him. The Erich Kästner Children's Village has had its headquarters in Oberschwarzach (Bavaria) since 1990 .

history

In 1991, at Luiselotte Enderle's will , the Erich Kästner Children's Village inherited the inventory of Erich Kästner's last house, which is now housed in the Erich Kästner Library .

activity

In the Erich Kästner Children's Village there are children with behavioral , emotional, developmental and / or psychosomatic disorders as well as children who require a particularly high level of care. They come from families in which they have failed, sometimes via intermediate stations such as foster families , another home or families who have adopted them. Some children also sometimes come from families in which they have been subjected to psychological and / or physical violence and have experienced violence.

They grow up in a coeducational way in Kinderdorf families based on the parenting principle (a couple lives together with their own children as part of a family group ). The own children and the children of the children's village form the family association. All the rules and safety of the family are available to all members. This children's village family lives in the countryside with an incentive for space and adventure. Integration into the village community is consciously sought. The children attend local kindergartens and mainstream schools . The educational activity often takes place in everyday situations. The most important goal of education is independent life planning.

In addition, targeted educational action is offered. Individual therapeutic measures and therapeutic strategies are implemented in everyday life, sometimes in collaboration with other specialist services. Furthermore, the Erich Kästner Children's Village implements intensive care, acute crisis intervention , taking into care , intensive school support and active parenting work. The special conceptual feature of the Erich Kästner Children's Village is that it avoids any kind of shift work. The parents can be reached by the children like in a "normal" family, i. H. 365 days and nights a year. This guarantees a special intensity of the relationship.

The children attend the mainstream schools in the districts (e.g. special schools for people with learning disabilities, elementary school, secondary school, secondary school, grammar school, vocational school) or the Sternstunden SchulCHEN, an internal schooling measure run by the Erich Kästner Children's Village. The admission age of the children is between two and ten years, the age of care ranges up to 21 years.

Today the Erich Kästner Children's Village offers 40 places in six children's family houses, 18 places in two curative educational day-care centers and twelve places in the Sternstunden SchulCHEN.

KästnerHof

The idea of the KästnerHof was born in 1997. Young people who have spent multiple stays in foster families or psychiatric clinics live in the children's village houses . Often their development is limited by learning disorders or learning disabilities . Almost grown up in their age, they are not yet mature enough to go the "normal" ways of becoming self-employed .

The KästnerHof is housed in an old mill near Oberschwarzach, the living and working world in one. There, weaker young people can practice and train all their skills and abilities that still need to be developed in a protective yard community, be it in the motor , cognitive or social area. The adolescents and adolescents learn to support the goals and tasks of the community, to find their own goals in life and to gradually arrive at these goals. They should learn to see themselves as independent and responsible people and to act accordingly.

The KästnerHof offers young people life support through its cooperation, which strengthens self-esteem, promotes independence and enables acceptance and integration within the community.

In the form of a community , up to eight young people live there with their carers and learn to work. Some of these young people come from the various children's village houses. However, young people from outside are also accepted who, due to their living situation, are very limited in their possibilities and thus would no longer have a chance in the “outside” world. You renovate and design the courtyard on your own or work in the nursery established in 2004 . In addition, the young people complete internships and “trial weeks” in various companies in the area. This gives them the necessary contact with the outside world and gives them an insight into the “normal” world of work. After about two to three years, the young people either start an apprenticeship or train as a skilled worker. If these two possibilities are not feasible, the young people are placed as semi-skilled workers in the companies in the area if possible.

Great moments SchulCHEN

The project “Sternstunden SchulCHEN” (own writing) has existed since 2001. This facility for the promotion of curative education is a cooperation project between schools and youth welfare . It is an internal schooling measure of the Erich Kästner Children's Village. Boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 16 in grades 1 to 9 of all types of schools are taught. These young people are housed in the Erich Kästner Children's Village. The schooling, care and therapy of the students are carried out by a multi-professional team, currently (2019) consisting of a qualified social pedagogue, a student assistant in the special school service, an occupational therapist, an educator and an educator in the recognition year. The team is supplemented by two senior teachers who are deployed in the project work and the local pastor who takes on religious instruction. You will always be accompanied by a member of the core team so that the relationship aspect is guaranteed. If necessary, a qualified psychologist and a child and adolescent psychiatrist are available for medical diagnostics. The aim of the measure is reintegration into the mainstream school system.

In SchulCHEN, students should learn again in a protected setting that learning is fun. The children are given time to find their strengths. Since it was impossible for many children at the beginning of their stay at home or in the course of their development to adequately cope with regular school attendance, this resulted in larger gaps in school. Stressful factors that prevent successful school attendance are, for example, traumatic experiences before admission (e.g. mistreatment, abuse), borderline syndrome, mentally ill parents, school phobia, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the like Close in this facility easily and without pressure until they are "fit" again for regular school. In the “Sternstunden Schulchen” project, the small number of pupils gives the opportunity to deal intensively with individual young people. Problems such as school anxiety or learning and attention disorders can be followed up and they can be overcome together with the student concerned. The reduction of fears, the strengthening of self-esteem, the development of strengths and resources, the stabilization of learning, performance and work behavior and the improvement of important intelligence support functions such as attention and memory are among the first steps and the goals of the students.

From the 2002 school year , the first seven pupils were taught in a small farm in Bimbach , which could be acquired through a donation from “Sternstunden”, a fundraising campaign by the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation . The project was supervised from the beginning by students from the University of Frankfurt and Professor Stephan Ellinger; the results were published as a book in November 2009.

Culture

Since 1998 there has been an annual “Kästner Week” in the “KästnerHof” salon in the first week of October. There the audience can experience cabaret in a familiar atmosphere , which does not always come directly from the author Kästner, but is largely in his tradition. Sometimes the young people of the children's village also have the opportunity to stand on stage in front of an audience.

The annual autumn market in November offers children and young people the opportunity to sell products they have produced themselves and to train their social skills in dealing professionally with visitors (café operation, sales situation).

Concerts by the children's songwriter Rolf Zuckowski , who supports the children's village and especially the KästnerHof, take place at irregular intervals .

Publications

Team around Gunda Fleischhauer: Home comes from home . Hans Meyer Verlag, Scheinfeld 1999, ISBN 978-3890141459 .
Stephan Ellinger, Eva-Maria Hoffart, Gerald Möhrlein (eds.): All -day school for traumatized children and young people . Athena-Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3898963879 .
Gunda Fleischhauer: I cry and I laugh tears: Of living spaces and life dreams of traumatized children . Westkreuz-Verlag GmbH Berlin / Bonn 2010, ISBN 978-3939721239 .