Residential education, other assisted living (children, adolescents and young adults)

Persons with custody have a right to assistance (for upbringing) in the upbringing of a child or adolescent if an upbringing in accordance with the child's or adolescent's welfare is not guaranteed and the assistance is suitable and necessary for the child's or adolescent's development.

The type and scope of the assistance is determined by the educational needs of the individual case, taking into account the child's or young person's immediate social environment.

The assistance that is ultimately to be provided is determined in a so-called assistance plan procedure, in which at least the legal guardians, the child or young person and the locally responsible youth welfare office are involved.

One possibility here is inpatient care in a home or inpatient education in another form of assisted living.

This includes a variety of forms of care: Children's and youth homes, youth residential groups, family-analogue or family-integrative forms of housing, supervised individual living, weekly groups, intensive groups, project places in Germany and abroad, joint forms of housing for mothers/fathers and children, in-custody places, etc.

In principle, Social Code Book VIII aims to educate young people to become independent and socially competent personalities.

Inpatient education is intended to promote the development of children and adolescents by combining everyday experience with educational and therapeutic offers. Depending on the age and stage of development of the young person, as well as according to the possibilities of improving the educational conditions in the family of origin, the law provides 3 options:

1. Try to return to the family
2. Prepare for parenting in another family
3. To provide a longer-term living arrangement and prepare for independent living

Young people are also to be advised and supported in questions of training and employment as well as general lifestyle.

The educational goals in detail remain reserved for the above-mentioned help plan procedure.

Young adults are to be granted help for personal development and to lead an independent life if and as long as the help is necessary due to the individual situation of the young person. As a rule, assistance is only granted until the young person reaches the age of 21.

This may also include home education or education in another form of assisted living.