Risk Assessment and Case Processing in Early Prevention and Child Protection

该研究项目探讨了在德国如何在儿童生命的第一年评估风险和压力因素以及家庭支助需求-即由哪些专业人员、采用哪些做法、工具和程序以及在哪些制度化网络中进行评估。该项目调查这些评估如何与根据《联邦幼儿园法》和《第八社会教育法》提供早期支助和/或其他措施相关。它旨在围绕儿童出生对这些评估进行定性-实证重建，重点是自2012年BKiSchG开始以来建立的程序和工具。BKiSchG的特点是对儿童保护既有狭隘的干预性理解，又有广泛的预防性理解。BKiSchG和早期支持系统的建立导致了有区别的案件分类，从而导致了新形式的专业间和机构间合作。该项目的重点是在危及儿童福利的情况下（即在启动《刑法》第八条第8a条程序之前）在干预门槛以下作出的（专业）区分和决定。本研究探讨个案的分类、责任与界定是如何在当地实际进行与组织的，以及在此背景下所产生的问题。以制度民族志的观点，并运用民族志与文献分析的方法，本研究的分析集中在两个个案层面：1.重建儿童及其家庭如何在早期支助的背景下根据风险进行分类和就地记录，以及如何实际处理与儿童福利有关的（一系列）区别和决定以及与家庭有关的案例构建和处理。2.重建安置在早期支持和/或其他措施的青年福利服务的实际过程逻辑的地方变化。在此，案例层面指的是市政当局对早期支助和儿童保护网络的管理和组织。将在两个大城市和两个农村行政区的早期支助和儿童保护网络中进行人种学实地工作，在这两个层次的对比个案研究的基础上，该项目旨在取得理论成果，表明预防性和干预性儿童保护如何在当地和不同的地方程序中结合或分离;在广泛理解儿童保护的背景下，如何在幼儿期配置和建立观察空间和网络，该项目将有助于对早期支持和儿童保护的接口和网络进行基础研究。

The research project explores how – i.e. by which professionals, with which practices, instruments and procedures and in which institutionalised networks – risk and stress factors and needs for support of families are assessed in Germany in the first year of a child’s life. The project investigates how these assessments become relevant for the provision of early support and/or other measures according to the Bundeskinderschutzgesetz (BKiSchG) and the Sozialgesetzbuch VIII (SGB VIII). It aims at a qualitative-empirical reconstruction of these assessments around children’s birth, with a focus on procedures and instruments that have been established since the commencement of the BKiSchG in 2012. The BKiSchG is characterised by a double orientation towards a simultaneously narrow, interventionist and a broad, preventive understanding of child protection. The BKiSchG and the establishment of early support systems led to differentiated case categorisations and accordingly to new forms of interprofessional and interinstitutional cooperation. The project focuses on those (professional) distinctions and decisions that are made below the intervention threshold in case of an endangerment of the welfare of the child (i.e. before the initiation of § 8a proceedings, SGB VIII). It investigates how case categorisations, responsibilities and delimitations are practically conducted and locally organised, and what problems arise in this context.In terms of an institutional ethnography, and in applying ethnographic and document-analytical approaches, the analysis focusses on two case levels: 1. The reconstruction of how children and their families are categorised and documented in situ with reference to risks in the context of early support and how (series of) distinctions and decisions with reference to child welfare and case constructions and processing with reference to families are practically processed. 2. The reconstruction of the local variations of practical process logics of placement in early support and/or other measures of youth welfare services. Here the case level refers to the municipal regulation and organisation of the early support and child protection networks. The ethnographic fieldwork will be conducted in contrasting fields, i.e. in the networks for early support and child protection in two large cities and two rural administrative districts.On the basis of contrastive case studies on both levels, the project aims at theoretical results that show● how preventive and interventional child protection is coupled or decoupled in situ and in different local procedural variants;● how, in the context of a broad understanding of child protection, observation spaces and networks are configured and constituted in early childhood.The project will contribute to fundamental research on the interfaces and networks of early support and child protection.