Evaluation “Family Centres at Primary Schools“

Objective and Tasks

Since the 2014/15 school year, the City of Gelsenkirchen has been the first municipality in North Rhine-Westphalia to establish family centres at primary schools. In the project "Family Centres at Primary Schools", a family centre was initially set up at a primary school with municipal funds; at the beginning of the school year 2015/16, two more such centres were added, supported by the Wübben Foundation.

In different phases of life children and their families need various forms of support which are appropriate to their respective situation. Different prevention projects aim to identify problems of this target group at an early stage, to make low-threshold help accessible, to use the resources of the social space and to improve quality, effectiveness and efficiency through cooperation between all potentially involved professionals and institutions. In the elementary sector, the further development of daycare facilities for children into family centres (also known as "centres for children and families", "parent-child centres", etc.) has proved to be successful in this context. With the aim of providing appropriate support for children and their families in the social environment, these centres cooperate with partners, for example, from the fields of family counselling and education and the health sector, and make their own additional offers. They often also take on a pilot function by directing families to a suitable position if necessary.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, daycare facilities for children have been developed into family centres since 2006. Experience has shown that this approach makes it possible to reach target groups with counselling and educational offers that would not easily make their way to a counselling centre or educational institution on their own. On the basis of a seal of approval issued by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the individual family centres develop an offer appropriate to their social environment. Similar to the daycare centres, primary schools also reach families with children of the appropriate age group on a broad basis. They are therefore also predestined as low-threshold contact partners for family support services. Against this background, the question arises of how these approaches can be systematized and expanded: to what extent, under what conditions and with what modifications can the concept of "family centre" be transferred to primary schools? The "FamzGru" initiative of the City of Gelsenkirchen, sponsored by the Wübben Foundation, was thus of great interest from a political and scientific point of view and offered the opportunity to generate findings on effects, conditions for success and quality criteria with regard to family centres at primary schools.

Procedure

The evaluation was based on the objectives of the City of Gelsenkirchen: the establishment of family centres at primary schools as an element of the prevention chain was aimed at improving the educational opportunities of school children and reducing disadvantages due to their origin. To achieve this goal, parents were to be strengthened in their competence to accompany their child's educational biography and to actively participate in school life. Family centres at primary schools are therefore intended to be places of education, upbringing and experience in the social space and activate and support self-help potential and social networks.

The evaluation concept included a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. The survey included on the one hand the parents, and on the other hand the pedagogical staff involved – the project management and the pedagogical staff of the project, the school management, teachers, staff of open all-day schools and cooperation partners. The parents were surveyed in two waves (school years 2015/16 and 2017/18) in the form of a full survey using a standardized questionnaire, and the professionals were surveyed using interviews and group discussions. In the 2016/17 academic year, there was also a course on "Integrated Services for Children and Families", in which the topic was scientifically prepared on the one hand and student surveyors conducted supplementary interviews with parents, teachers and staff of the open all-day schools. The central results of all surveys were evaluated across the board and summarized in a final report.

Since then, the city of Gelsenkirchen has set up further family centres at elementary schools; the Wübben Foundation is working with a group of municipalities on the transfer of the concept; the state of North Rhine-Westphalia wants to install possibilities of support for family centres at elementary schools. The results of the evaluation showed that parents can easily be reached through low-threshold offers and that the planning and implementation of a family centre at primary schools is a demanding task in terms of organizational development. It requires the promotion of multi-professional cooperation, the linking with all-day offers and school social work, and integration into school development.

The project was carried out in cooperation between the research department "Education and Training in Structural Change" and Konkret Consult Ruhr GmbH (KCR), Gelsenkirchen.