Child and youth protection has the task of ensuring the positive health and psychosocial development of children and young people and promoting their upbringing to become critical, responsible and socially competent individuals. The aim is to protect children and young people from a wide range of dangers. These dangers include violence, addictive substances, media use, communication risks, bullying, delinquency, extremism and sects.
The protection of minors can be divided into educational and regulatory youth protection. While the educational protection of minors focuses on promoting an age- and development-appropriate upbringing for all children and young people, the regulatory protection of minors focuses on legal prohibitions that create a framework in which young people can grow up safely.
The educational protection of children and minors is intended to set positive accents in the physical, mental and social development of young people through information, advice and educational impulses in order to counteract dangers in a preventive manner. For example, it deals with the prevention of addiction, the strengthening of media skills, the prevention of violence and problematic leisure behavior and is aimed at young people as well as parents, guardians and legal guardians.
The youth welfare office can provide information and advice for pupils, children and young people, for parents and other guardians as well as for professionals. For example, it can carry out projects at schools, organize specialist lectures or publish information brochures.
Educational youth protection is mainly carried out at state level by Aktion Jugendschutz, Landesarbeitsstelle Bayern e. V. (aj). The aj (Aktion Jugendschutz) offers and develops innovative concepts and services in the areas of youth media protection/media education, addiction and violence prevention as well as sex education/prevention of sexualized violence and gambling addiction prevention. ELTERNTALK offers moderated discussion groups for parents on the topics of media, consumption, sexual education, addiction prevention and growing up healthy in the family. Educational professionals are offered a wide range of training courses and methods for educational practice in the various key areas. In addition, comprehensive and useful work aids, methods and information are available for both educational professionals and parents.
The JFF - Institute for Media Education in Research and Practice is also a central pillar of educational youth protection. It deals with media education research and practical educational work. The research flows into the educational work. The aim is for children and young people to learn how to use media in a self-determined, reflective and safe way. At the same time, they should be enabled to use media as a means of actively engaging with their own living environment, participating in the social environment and communicating their own point of view.