Movement program via video chat

The Corona crisis poses a special challenge for the conductive development center FortSchritt from Niederpöcking. Most of the approximately 420 employees work from their home office. They also try to look after the children with innovative ideas.

Niederpöcking / Starnberg - We see employees at the kitchen table and in the home office, alone under the sloping roof and together with the children, and a cat should not be missing - welcome to the home office. Just like countless employees in the district of Starnberg, the 420 employees of the conductive development center FortSchritt from Niederpöcking try to defy the corona crisis as best they can. And even more: the educational team develops music with movement, small films and plays and readings for children from home, which it then publishes on the FortSchritt Facebook page and its own YouTube channel. The non-profit GmbH has thus secured a first prize in the IHK campaign "Companies against the Virus".

"It's a really great application," says Martin Eickelschulte, chairman of the IHK regional committee in Starnberg, who launched the campaign together with the district trade union, the business development agency gwt, the business association UWS and the Starnberger Merkur. The reward for the effort: The Starnberger delicatessen Schindler will make "a culinary contribution to the buffet" for the next celebration at FortSchritt, as Eickelschulte explains.

And what are the FortSchritt women and men currently doing? "As a provider of integrative day care centers for children and conductive curative education, progress has to master a very special situation," explains spokeswoman Verena Fahrion. On the one hand, educators and nannies continue to look after children in day care centers whose parents work in so-called systemically relevant professions. On the other hand, they keep in touch from the home office with all the other girls and boys who normally visit the facilities. "Children with disabilities in particular are dependent on their daily exercise program," says Fahrion. FortSchritt now delivers this via video chat at home.

In addition, it is important that the crib children see and hear their daily caregivers from the daycare centers again and again. The educators and music educators read to the children from books, they perform small plays, play music and have created a hands-on film. On YouTube there are now videos such as "The very hungry caterpillar to hear", "The howling owl is experiencing a new adventure" or an Easter story with Playmobil characters.

And that's not all: "We also pack packages and parcels with the favorite toys, cuddly toys or the favorite books of crèche or kindergarten children," says Verena Fahrion. "So nothing should be lacking at home." A home office with a role model.