“What do families need?” We asked this and other questions to the participants at this year’s Work-Life Balance Week at the University of Bremen .
The University of Bremen hosted its Work-Life Balance Week for the third time. This year, numerous online events topics such as studying and crisis, queer parenthood, mental load, distance caregiving, invisible barriers, and many others.
Know what we have
For the "familiennetz bremen" (Bremen family network), this is a welcome opportunity to show interested parties what support the city of Bremen offers for balancing work and family life. Hearing about the obstacles and difficulties faced by caregivers and being able to point them to services that are helpful to the people of Bremen is very rewarding work.
Therefore, we gladly take advantage of opportunities such as the Work-Life Balance Week to draw attention to the often helpful guide "familiennetz bremen".
Talk about what we need
Learning directly from people which services they find useful and which they don't reflects the desire for greater participation. Gaining more insight into actual benefits offers the opportunity to improve services.
And even more: As a specialist and service center for families, we also depend on learning more from families about what support they lack, what is missing, in order to have good conditions in taking responsibility for each other.
We were not surprised
The exchange with students and staff at the University of Bremen about the question "What do families need?" didn't really surprise us. Perhaps the quick answers to the question of which services make everyday family life easier were a bit surprising. Generally, the answers to the question of what kind of support is lacking in everyday family life are more readily available.
All the more gratifying was the appreciation shown for services such as childcare, advice on caring for relatives, financial support services, professional support in separation situations, bicultural services, secondhand shops for those on a budget, children's gymnastics, and other very different lists.
The list of desired changes represented a diverse mix of items: more flexible childcare during off-peak hours, financial relief through free public transport, free visits to museums, generally more opportunities for participation, crediting of family time towards an adequate pension, greater appreciation of care work, and much more.
The event ended with a consensus to show greater appreciation for children in general, to see them less as a nuisance and much more as an asset to society!
Anja Lohse has been managing the family network Bremen for many years and is responsible, among other things, for advice, content concepts and projects for participation.