Material poverty has a serious impact on children and young people. This restricts their participation in social life. The city of Bonn has set itself the task of combating child poverty, improving the conditions for children and young people to grow up successfully and promoting their participation in society. The city of Bonn has been participating in the state program "Kinderstark - NRW schafft Chancen" since July 2020 in order to better bundle the existing services and help and to strengthen cooperation and networking. The council has now adopted the prevention mission statement, which was developed across administrative and agency boundaries. This serves as a firm guideline for all stakeholders in Bonn when dealing with children, young people and their families. It is binding for the institutions and facilities of the city of Bonn. It is recommended for binding adoption by all independent institutions and facilities.
"All parents want their children to grow up healthy and happy. But the opportunities are not the same for everyone. By participating in the 'kinderstark - NRW schafft Chancen' program, the city of Bonn wants to help ensure that all children can develop in the best possible way - regardless of their family background. 'kinderstark' bundles the child-friendly forces in our city, brings together all the important players, creates a network for families and sets concrete measures in motion to support them. The mission statement that has now been adopted is a binding guideline to which we align all our efforts," says Mayor Katja Dörner.
Prevention chain: a sustainable network of support, advice and funding
The "kinderstark" program supports the establishment and expansion of municipal prevention chains for children, young people and families. The prevention chain refers to the development of a comprehensive and sustainable network of support, advice and funding at local authority level. The municipal prevention chain encompasses all services and measures in the municipality for children, young people and families from pregnancy to the transition to training, studies, work and a self-determined life. The "kinderstark" program is part of the municipal prevention chain with the target groups children from the age of four and young people. This means that it is directly linked to the so-called early help, which takes effect even earlier. The joint task is to shape the prevention chain in such a way that the consequences of material poverty do not affect the participation and upbringing of children and young people.
Prevention mission statement is the basis for cooperation
Municipalities participating in the funding program are obliged to develop an intersectoral and interdepartmental prevention mission statement. This creates the basis for joint cooperation between all professionals working with children, young people and families. In two workshops, a monitoring committee under the leadership of the Coordination Office in the Department for Children, Youth and Families drew up the mission statement, with technical support from the Institute for Social Work in Münster.
Numerous offices, coordination offices, interest groups and committees are represented on the monitoring committee, including, for example, the city sports association, the round table against child and family poverty, the Bonn community for the disabled, the city school board, the youth welfare advisory board, early help, the Bonn children and youth ring, the victim protection working group, AG 78 as well as representatives for the topics of addiction, social space orientation, integration and inclusion. From the city administration alone, 15 offices and departments are represented.
The development of the mission statement was based on feedback from a survey of children and young people as well as a survey of children, young people and parents at World Children's Day 2022, which was developed and supported by the "kinderstark" monitoring committee. A wide variety of network stakeholders were brought together during the development process. This enabled the participants to write down shared visions and values across all areas, establish growing up with equal opportunities as a fundamental value and establish identification with the mission statement that was created.
This is how it continues
The next step in the "kinderstark" program is to back up the mission statement vision with concrete content as part of the monitoring committee. Along the lines of the prevention mission statement, coordination is to be improved, services and planning interlinked across the board and gaps in the system identified and eliminated. The aim is to make the prevention network for children, young people and families even more sustainable. In this way, the stakeholders involved with children, young people and families can move from a common purpose (the mission statement) to "joint action". The mission statement is to be evaluated at regular intervals.
The mission statement can be viewed in detail here (opens in a new tab). Further information on the program can be found at www.bonn.de/kinderstark (opens in a new tab) and at https://www.kinderstark.nrw/kommunen/bonn. (opens in a new tab)