“Foster parents wanted!” The call is clearly visible at bus stops or as an advertisement in newspapers and magazines. There is a lack of foster families in Germany, i.e. people who take care of a child instead of the biological parents and give them a family environment. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced at the end of December 2023 that more than 207,000 young people grew up in a home or a foster family in 2022, 121,000 of them in homes and 86,000 in foster families. In just over one in four cases, the children affected are younger than ten years old. There are many reasons for the need for replacement families; it is often the loss of caregivers or the authorities see the child’s well-being as being at risk.
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