Suspicion of violence in day care centers: left alone, exposed, forced to eat

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Cross-border behavior occurs especially when eating

Photo:

Angelika Warmuth/ dpa

Staff shortages in German day care centers can have a devastating impact on children's safety and well-being.

This is suggested by a survey by Bayerischer Rundfunk among daycare supervisors in the Free State.

The broadcaster asked 76 supervisory authorities of day-care centers and crèches, and 59 provided information.

The results are shocking: the participating authorities had documented 232 reports of psychological and physical violence by the beginning of December – around 100 suspected cases more than in the previous year.

This includes, for example, children being forced to eat, humiliated, exposed or roughly touched by staff.

Violations of the supervisory obligation have increased particularly drastically, more than doubling in 2022.

Because there is a lack of staff, fewer and fewer adults have to look after more and more children in many facilities.

Lack of staff as a risk factor for violence

The numbers only reflect part of the reality: ten authorities stated in the survey that they did not count suspicious activity reports at all.

At the same time, only cases that daycare centers report to the supervisory authorities can be documented.

The number of unreported cases is therefore likely to be much higher.

All of the authorities surveyed reported a lack of staff in their facilities - the majority saw this as a risk factor for violence.

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The BR reporter team also interviewed more than 60 day-care center employees.

Only two of them stated that they had not yet experienced any psychological or physical violence against children in their facilities.

Day-care centers and crèches are organized at the municipal level in Germany.

It is therefore difficult to obtain comparable data nationwide.

The BR survey refers to facilities in Bavaria - but associations and trade unions in other federal states are also repeatedly sounding the alarm.

Study: Cross-border behavior, especially when eating

In the summer of 2021, the nationwide study "Participation of children in everyday daycare" was published, which the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences and the University of Graz had prepared on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs.

A team of scientists filmed and evaluated everyday situations in 89 day-care centers and crèches.

more on the subject

• Debate about compulsory daycare: »Should I laugh or cry?« By Swantje Unterberg

• Shortage of staff as a permanent condition: Can parents still bring their child to the day care center with a clear conscience? Interview by Silke Fokken

Especially when eating, the researchers repeatedly observed “physical contact that crossed boundaries” and inappropriate behavior on the part of the educational staff: for example, they pushed the chair and child so close to the table that the child could hardly move its upper body.

Others placed the plate on the bib, also to prevent the children from moving too much while eating.

The researchers observed such incidents one to four times in around 30 percent of the ten-minute meal sequences.

In 16 percent of the situations even more often.

Only in a fifth of the analyzed game situations and eleven percent of the eating sequences did the researchers observe no cross-border behavior at all.

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