As of: March 13, 2024, 12:55 p.m
By: Sandra Sedlmaier
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Change in Tutzing at Tabaluga child and youth welfare: Wolfgang Brandstetter has handed over management to Cecilia Mingazzini.
© Andrea Jaksch
The Tabaluga child and youth welfare service in Tutzing survived the Corona period.
What remains: a lot of overtime by the dedicated employees and the realization that lockdown and quarantine can have a positive effect on cohesion in a residential group of eight people.
Tutzing
– The Corona period was also a big challenge for Tabaluga child and youth welfare.
Like all families, the residential groups of eight children and young people with their permanent carers were suddenly on their own.
One difficulty was that some of the most traumatized children and young people came under massive psychological pressure as a result of the forced retreat.
Another was that employees suddenly had to be there around the clock.
Tabaluga has mastered both.
There are still children and young people who avoid school, says the former managing director of Tabaluga child and youth welfare, Wolfgang Brandstetter.
But he is not sure whether this school phobia is just a result of Corona.
He also sees positive sides to the pandemic.
“The cohesion in the groups has become greater,” he and his successor Cecilia Mingazzini note.
“And the isolation of children did not occur here,” adds Mingazzini.
In a group in which eight children lived, someone was always there.
The younger children survived the Corona period better than the young people who lost their friends of the same age, says Brandstetter.
He also has positive memories of the support from outside.
The Starnberg Lions Club quickly organized tablets for homeschooling.
And thanks to donations, it was possible to equip all Tabaluga houses with WiFi.
“We were able to achieve this thanks to the help of the foundation and the sponsorship,” he is still grateful today.
“It would have been difficult for us to get by with the usual budget for child and youth welfare.” Savings were hardly possible, neither on children nor on salaries.
What’s also left from the Corona period: “There was an incredible amount of overtime that our colleagues haven’t yet recovered from,” says Mingazzini.
Some employees went into quarantine with the children even though they had their own families at home.
There was also a lot more need for care because the school was closed.
Some have had their overtime paid, others are still putting it off.
Speaking of money: This is the next challenge for Tabaluga child and youth welfare.
The level of employee salaries is based on the tariff in the public sector - and this increases by around ten percent with the March salaries.
Tabaluga needs more money for this.
“We have to negotiate new daily rates with the pay commissions,” explains Mingazzini.
This is necessary again and again.
There are hardly any problems with personnel.
So far, the Tabaluga child and youth welfare service has at least enough staff that no group has had to be closed.
“This was the case in other houses,” reports Mingazzini.
It's a disaster when you compare demand and supply.
Tabaluga currently looks after around 80 children at four locations in Tutzing, Peißenberg and Schongau.
Only two positions are vacant.
The demand in recent years has been 250 places per year, says the managing director, who has been managing inquiries for 15 years.
“There used to be 120 to 150 inquiries a year, but now inquiries no longer just come from Bavaria, but from all over Germany.
I’ve also had calls from Austria and Liechtenstein,” says the managing director.
If the two positions are filled again, additional places can be offered.