More flexible booking times for after-school care children

Created: 05/18/2022, 18:00

By: Barbara Schlotterer-Fuchs

The care offered by Kinderhilfe Oberland is becoming more flexible, says Christiane Juraske (right).

© Hans-Helmut Herold

When it comes to childcare, parents expect flexibility.

Kinderhilfe Oberland is now reacting to this: for the coming school year, the integrative after-school care centers in Peiting, Peißenberg and Weilheim will say goodbye to the rigid booking concept.

District – The open all-day school, OGTS for short, had outstripped the after-school care center in a way: free of charge, directly at the school, flexible booking days and times.

Many parents opted for this way of taking care of their elementary school children in the afternoon.

"In recent years we have had more and more problems getting regular children to register for the after-school care centre," explains Christiane Juraske from Kinderhilfe Oberland, which operates three after-school care centers in the district, Peiting, Peißenberg and Weilheim.

There were many inquiries about after-school care places for I-children – children who had been integrated and needed more care.

However, these booking questions could often not be accepted.

The key has to match, there have to be three normal children for every first child.

And they were increasingly missing.

The reason: Up to this school year, parents had to use the full booking time for their children.

In concrete terms, this means that the child could not be picked up from the after-school care center before four-thirty or five in the afternoon.

"I can understand that it's a long time for some parents," admits Juraske.

The head of the after-school care center at Kinderhilfe also understands parents who only want their child to be cared for when they are working and not on days when they are at home.

However, it's not as simple as that.

Because: The district and youth welfare office only finance the special care and support costs of the I-children if they stay in the after-school care center until the end of the day at five in the afternoon.

The ulterior motive: If all children stay until the end, the group will not be torn apart.

In order to be able to keep up with the competition OGTS, Kinderhilfe Oberland is now throwing the rigid booking concept overboard.

Everything will be more flexible from the 2022/23 school year.

Each child only has to book at least 15 hours and can choose the days they want to come.

Space splitting is also possible.

In other words, parents can get together and share a day care center.

How much of the at least 15 hours which child gets can be freely chosen.

"You can also book different days, that's like the OGTS," explains Christiane Juraske.

She further emphasizes that the after-school care center is a high-quality care option, the children are only looked after by trained educators.

The fact that the integrative children are then alone in the group at the end of the afternoon with the new concept is now seen as an advantage in the after-school care center: "This gives us the opportunity to work more specifically with these children in the last hour," says Juraske.

The offers in the Oberland child care centers range from homework and holiday care to excursions, lunch and workshops on social behavior, communication and dealing with conflicts.

Info:

Further information on the integrative after-school care centers of Kinderhilfe Oberland is available on the Kinderhilfe Oberland homepage.

Interested parents can also contact the facilities directly.

Kinderhilfe Oberland is also happy to offer taster days for the children.

You can find more current news from the region around Schongau at Merkur.de/Schongau.