Taking Into Care - In The Child's Best Interest? The German Youth Welfare Office is under criticism from the European Parliament
Authors: Holzheimer René Gordon , Ballhorn Detlef 
Published: March 2024

Introduction: The number of children taken into care by German youth welfare offices has been increasing for years as a result of changes in the law according to publicly known endangerments to child welfare. Due to an increase in petitions from non-German parents to the European Parliament's Petitions Committee against administrative acts that they felt to be arbitrary (e.g. taking into care), the European Parliament repeatedly (2007, 2018, 2022, 2023) dealt with the processes in the German Youth Welfare Office. Material and Methods: Compilation of the documents of the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament in 2007, 2018, 2022, and 2023 on the German Youth Welfare Office. Additional searches in Pubmed, google scholar, and google under the keywords child welfare, the best interest of the child, damage to health through taking into care, harm to children through taking into care, the impact of financial threats to parents to youth welfare, psychological trauma through taking into care by the youth welfare office. Reproduction of the essential questions of the member European Parliament (MEPs) and answers of German authorities and family courts. Structure in: The principle “In the best children’s interest” and “child wellbeing (welfare)”, legal duties of the youth office, taking into care by youth office, the power of youth office, relationship court youth office, control of the German youth office, costs of the proceedings, guardian ad litem, duties and functions of the court. The answers of the German authorities are summarized in the respective sections, supplemented by relevant literature and personal communications. Results: For years, the German youth welfare office has been criticized for either failing to protect the welfare of the child or protecting it too late. Over the past 20 years or so, changes in the law have led to increasing numbers of childcare takings based on undefined norms of the child's best interests and child welfare. In short: the guardian state is increasingly intervening in the family, which is protected by Article 6 of the Basic Law, with the unclear justification that the parents are overburdened or lacking (proof of) the ability to bring up children, precisely regarding Article 6 invoking the guardian state, and is separating parents from their children without having sufficient scientific knowledge about the consequences of taking the children into care. The families receive high bills for this, disregarding proportionality and exclusion criteria. The possibility of changing something by complaining is small. The responsible community decides on the complaint itself. Transparency is reduced with the exclusion of the public and the rejection of requests to inspect files. This led to the expressed suspicion of arbitrary measures and an increase in petitions to the European Petitions Committee, which has been dealing with the youth welfare office since 2007 and even came to Germany for a "fact-finding visit" in 2022. The questions from the MEPs on the above areas were partly answered incompletely or not at all or contradicted the literature and the evidence. The answers of the German community of responsibility prompted the MEPs to ask further questions (Amendments 2023). Conclusion: It cannot be denied that the answers of the youth welfare office were not very convincing for the MEPs of the petition committee, taking into account the scientific literature and known documents. The lack of transparency (e.g., refusal to inspect files) and agreements reinforced the MEPs' negative impression of the youth welfare office (shadow body, where there is smoke, there is fire), and led to the announcement of further controls by the MEPs.