Paritätischer: Few children benefit from the participation package
According to new calculations, most children and young people from citizen's allowance families receive nothing from the so-called education and participation package. In Lower Saxony, just 16.3 percent of these children between the ages of 6 and 14 receive this benefit, compared to 12.2 percent in Bremen, according to a study published on Friday by the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, which is based on data from the Federal Employment Agency. This put Lower Saxony in fourth place among the federal states, behind Schleswig-Holstein (58.1 percent), Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (38.1 percent) and North Rhine-Westphalia (22.8 percent).
According to the study, the national average was just under 18% of children in the relevant age group receiving the benefit. "The education and participation package is apparently so well packaged and tied up that hardly anyone can open it. For over a decade, it has fallen miles short of its goal of enabling children and young people from low-income families to take part in sport, education or culture," said Managing Director Ulrich Schneider. The association sees the education and participation package as a fundamental failure.
Instead, Schneider advocated the basic child protection promised in the coalition agreement and its swift introduction along with sufficient funding in the federal budget. The basic child protection scheme is regarded as the social policy project at the heart of the coalition government and is intended to bring together various financial benefits such as child benefit, citizen's allowance, social assistance, child supplement and benefits from the education and participation package. This should create better opportunities for children and young people and reach more families in need of support.
In Lower Saxony, the district of Verden came out on top in terms of participation - 89.6 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 14 received the participation benefit. In second place was the city of Oldenburg (88.2 percent) ahead of the city of Wolfsburg (65.3 percent). Bringing up the rear was the district of Göttingen (1.5 percent). In the city of Bremen, the participation rate was 11.5 percent, in Bremerhaven 14.5 percent.
The lack of social affairs support in the education and participation package is a concern for families relying on citizen's allowance, as only a small percentage of children from these families benefit. Managing Director Ulrich Schneider emphasized this failure, suggesting the implementation of a comprehensive basic child protection scheme, which aims to improve opportunities for children and reach more families in need.
Source: www.dpa.com
