LEAVING CARE IN GERMANY: LEGAL AND ORGANISATIONAL FRAMEWORK

Abstract

Young people who cannot live with their birth families are provided with care through the child and youth welfare system. They are placed in foster, or residential care. In Germany, children and young people in care, and after leaving care are referred to with the English term “care leaver”. This phrase has become a code name for this group of persons in society. They have increasingly received attention from policy makers, and researchers over the last two decades. The chapter gives an overview to the German situation of children in and leaving care. It introduces the statistics in the field and the organizational, as well as legal framework, describes the path to independence when leaving care, and promising recent developments to empower care leavers, as well as to support self-organization.