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73 percent of all minors are still mentally affected by Corona

2023-02-08T12:08:36.463Z


Family Minister Lisa Paus and Health Minister Karl Lauterbach have presented a final report on the situation of children and young people after the pandemic. The results are terrifying.


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Boy with a mask on a school corridor

Photo: Westend61 / Getty Images

The Federal Government has presented the final report of a working group on the health effects of Corona on children and young people.

Accordingly, the consequences of the pandemic for children and young people continue to this day.

According to the paper, 73 percent of children and young people are still mentally stressed.

Family Minister Lisa Paus and Health Minister Karl Lauterbach presented the report in Berlin.

The working group recommends concrete measures to help children and young people to cope with the psychological and psychosocial stress caused by the pandemic.

Paus said that in addition to the psychological stress of the corona pandemic, there are current stresses from war, inflation and the climate crisis.

This hits children from poorer families particularly hard.

»However, how well young people survive crises must not depend on personal resources or the social status of the family.

As a society as a whole, we are called upon to alleviate the burden on young people – especially on those who are more burdened than others.«

Lauterbach explained that Germany had had school closures for a particularly long time compared to other countries.

That was probably a mistake.

"There is damage that does not have to remain, but it is damage that can remain." Lauterbach emphasized that he had already averted the imminent insolvency of children's hospitals with the Hospital Care Relief Act.

This law is intended to distribute 300 million euros to each of the children's wards over the next two years.

Five recommendations for action

The aim now is to ensure faster access to therapeutic care: “We are reshaping the financing of hospital treatment for children and ensuring better reimbursement for children’s medicines.”

Lauterbach only recently changed his attitude towards dealing with children in the pandemic.

"In retrospect," he recently stated in the ZDF "heute journal" that school closures were exaggerated in his opinion.

Children and young people have wrongly become the main victims of the reduction in contact.

Other "draconian measures", such as curfews or the blocking of outdoor children's playgrounds, were "things that would no longer be done today".

The working group identified five fields of action and processed recommendations for them.

  • In the field of

    early help

    , the federal government wants to expand the offers this year.

    56 million euros are available for this, among other things to reach families directly after the birth via welcome visits or pilot services and to support them, for example, with family midwives.

  • In the field of

    child day care

    , the day-care center quality law, federal investment programs for day-care center expansion and a skilled labor strategy are intended to contribute to more quality.

    The federal government is supporting the federal states with around four billion euros in 2023 and 2024, also for measures in the areas of health, nutrition and exercise.

  • In the school field of action, mental health coaches are to be deployed in

    schools

    from the 2023/24 school year.

    They should help children and young people with their worries and problems.

  • In the field of

    health care

    , the federal government wants to work to improve medical care for children and young people and to eliminate bottlenecks in pediatric medicines.

  • In the field of

    youth and family

    support, new legal entitlements for children, young people and families to advice and support are to be implemented.

    Children should be able to access psychosocial counseling from the youth welfare office without their parents being informed.

    Mentally ill parents should be able to access help from the educational counseling centers at low thresholds.

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Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2023-02-08

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