Often after unaccompanied entry: More and more children end up at the youth welfare office

The number of children receiving support from the youth welfare office has been declining for a long time.

Often after unaccompanied entry: More and more children end up at the youth welfare office

The number of children receiving support from the youth welfare office has been declining for a long time. But for the first time in four years, the authorities are taking in more children. Minors who enter Germany unaccompanied need help in particular.

The numbers have been falling for four years, but last year German youth welfare offices took more children and young people into care than in the previous year. The Federal Statistical Office announced that around 47,500 minors were temporarily taken into care in 2021. This corresponded to an increase of five percent compared to the previous year. In 2017, the number was significantly higher at around 61,300 cases.

With a significant increase of 49 percent compared to the previous year, more children in particular were admitted by the youth welfare offices in the context of an unaccompanied entry from abroad. On the other hand, taking into care due to urgent threats to the welfare of the child fell by six percent or around 1,800 cases.

This decline could possibly also be due to the contact restrictions in the wake of the corona pandemic, the statisticians explained. This could have contributed to the fact that some of the child protection cases remained undiscovered due to restrictions in school and daycare operations.

A total of around 28,500 children and young people were taken into care in Germany last year because of urgent threats to their well-being, which corresponds to 60 percent of all cases. Almost 11,300 or 24 percent were unaccompanied entries, a good 7700 or 16 percent of the taking into care were carried out by children and young people after they had reported themselves to the youth welfare office.

Particularly in the case of children under the age of 14, in every second case the parents' excessive demands were the reason for taking them into care. 26 percent of the children were admitted for protection against neglect, 18 percent for protection against physical violence and 12 percent for protection against psychological violence. Among young people between the ages of 14 and 18, 38 percent of those taken into care were unaccompanied entries.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, a significant proportion of the takings into care were completed after a relatively short time: 53 percent lasted a maximum of two weeks, every third case only a maximum of five days. Twelve percent of those taken into care lasted three months or longer.

(This article was first published on Wednesday, July 27, 2022.)