Erfurt (dpa/th) – Last year, the Thuringian youth welfare offices conducted 4024 procedures to assess a child’s welfare. As the Thuringian State Office for Statistics announced on Monday, this was a decrease of 458 risk assessments compared to the previous year. 2,030 girls (50.4 percent) and 1,994 boys (49.6 percent) were affected by the assessments of child endangerment.
As a result of the risk assessments, the specialists identified 632 acute, clear and 663 latent cases of child endangerment. In the case of a latent threat to the well-being of the child, there are serious indications of a threat, but the suspicion could not be definitively confirmed. In 67.8 percent of all cases, the experts came to the conclusion that there was no endangerment to the welfare of the child. However, in a good 1800 cases there was a need for help or support for the families from the youth welfare offices.
According to the information, the most common form of child endangerment is signs of neglect. Signs of psychological abuse were found in 29.7 percent of the cases of child endangerment. Physical abuse was identified in 275 cases and signs of sexual violence in 65 cases. In 269 cases, several types of risk were recorded.
According to this information, the youth welfare offices were informed in 884 cases by the police, the court and the public prosecutor’s office (22 percent) of a possible endangerment of the child’s welfare. Another 567 initiatives came from anonymous reporters (14.1 percent) and in 372 cases (9.2 percent) they were acquaintances or neighbors.
