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Jugendamt

The Youth Welfare Service

The Youth Welfare Service carries out the tasks of the local public youth welfare organisation. The purpose of public youth welfare is to promote the education and development of young people. Nevertheless, public youth welfare is not delegated an independent educational mandate since parents have a natural right to care for and raise their children under the law.

Accordingly, public youth welfare shows children, young persons and parents in conflict situations ways in which they can resolve these themselves while offering advice and support tailored to the situation at hand. In urgent and emergency situations, youth welfare offices can take affected children and young persons into care where they are in need of protection.

The decision to place children in care is a temporary form of social-pedagogic crisis intervention as part of child and youth welfare. A decisive criterion is the presence of an acute threat to a child’s well-being. Furthermore, youth welfare offices are obliged to place a child or young person in care where he or she requests this him- or herself.

 

Find help fast

The 186 local youth welfare offices in North Rhine-Westphalia offer competent help for children, young persons, parents, professionals, teachers, voluntary workers and any other concerned parties. They can also put these persons in touch with other suitable support organisations in individual cases. You can find an overview of all the youth welfare offices in North Rhine-Westphalia on the German Ministry of Children and Youth’s website where the responsible youth welfare office in each particular case can be found by name or postcode.