Analysis of the national child and youth welfare system in contribution to the promotion of intercultural co-operation

The co-operative partnership of different nations in the area of child protection enables the analysis and systematic comparison of their respective national assistance systems. Such assistance systems are highly complex structures that can only be understood in the context of each country's specific historical development. Co-operation between different countries is subsequently helpful, because it encourages examination of what has fundamentally shaped their respective national child protection systems. What are the really formative elements in these assistance systems? Which elements come into consideration when a system needs to be comprehensively understood for comparison with another national assistance system? This article presents, one after the other, four such levels at which the systems can be observed. This is intended to promote recognition when comparing the systems from different national child protection models. The elements for analysis which underlie the German child and youth assistance systems are briefly made concrete so that, on this basis, clarification in the observation of the child and youth systems of other nations follows.