At the HOPE Congress 2025 in Dublin I became Committee Member for Germany. Sadly, I couldn’t attend the HOPE Committee Member meeting in Dublin, I attended the Congress only after the meeting of the Committee Members.
As a Committee Member I understand my part in being the link between the organisation HOPE and its German members.
As a special education needs teacher I have been teaching children and young people with mental health issues since 2011 at the Hospital School in Munich. With my family I lived at Bristol, England, from 2015 till 2016. My internship at Bristol Hospital Education Service made me reflect the German system of hospital educational service to the English hospital educational service as well as the HOPE Congress in Romania, in Milano and in Dublin made me have a wider understanding of the work of hospital pedagogues.
International approaches are important to expand theory, research, knowledge and practice of effective education and developmental support for children. This is why I support Michele Capurso in writing the newsletter of Continuity in Education. Continuity in Education is an open access, peer reviewed journal supported by HOPE.
The last 8 years I have been working with children and young people that got taken into custody by the state due to a threat to their child’s welfare. A lot of these children and young people had mental health diagnoses like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, reactive attachment disorder and many more. Often their mental health needs were linked to the threat to the child’s welfare. But as youth welfare units are not like a hospital with permanent medical support, the government decided to shut down the class. A lot of children will not have continuity in their education, although they strongly need it. Even though many of them have serious mental health needs, they are not seen as students with mental health needs. They can’t join the hospital education service. These children have now to go to regular schools. Some of these children and young people will simply not be able to join classes in regular schools. At the moment there is no good idea how to support these children. Home tuition is not the same as learning in a class.
A classroom in a unit of the youth welfare system in Munich. Unfortunately the class was closed down.
A lot of students with mental health needs have been learning here over the past 20 years.
The HOPE Charter describes the rights and educational needs of children and adolescents with medical or mental health needs: “2. The aim of tuition for children and adolescents with medical or mental health needs is the continuation of education, enabling them to maintain their role as pupil or student.”
I am looking forward to attend the next Committee Member meeting at the next HOPE Congress and maybe bring my issue to its agenda: Continuity in Education also for children with mental health needs in state custody.
Lana Schiefenhövel
Lana.schiefenhoevel@muenchen.de
