Resource Genogram for the Care-Planning Conversation

What Is This Form For?

The care-planning procedure under § 36 SGB VIII (Section 36 of Book Eight of the German Social Code, the statutory care-planning procedure) is built around participation: those with custody and the child or young person are involved, several professionals work together, and the plan is regularly reviewed to check whether the assistance remains suitable and necessary. That is exactly where a genogram earns its keep — it makes visible who, besides the people with custody, actually belongs to the system. A great-aunt whom contact has lapsed with appears in no case file. In the genogram, she appears as soon as someone asks about her.

The form lies open on the table during the conversation. What the family can read on it as it takes shape, they can also correct.

What’s Inside

• Seven resource categories, each with a line for the specific name — from reliable attachment figures outside the nuclear family to the child’s own interests. A checked category without a name does not count.
• Six burden factors, assessed just as honestly, but only as far as they are known and relevant to the care plan.
• Seven interview questions to read aloud, with space for the answer. The last one hands the interpretation back to the family before the practitioner formulates their own.
• A field for disagreement — where the family does not share an assessment, that is documented, not overwritten.
• A checkbox for § 8a SGB VIII (Section 8a SGB VIII, Germany’s statutory child-protection duty). If checked “Yes,” the genogram work ends in this setting.

Why Resources Come First

The order is not cosmetic. Opening a care-planning conversation with the burdens produces a family that defends itself; starting with the resources produces a family that talks. This does not make the risk assessment any softer — it only happens at a point where the family is still engaged in the conversation. And assistance that starts exclusively from deficits has nothing to build on.

What the Form Does Not Do

It does not replace the risk assessment under § 8a SGB VIII. If weighty indications of a risk to a child’s welfare arise, that procedure applies; the genogram merely supplies clues for it, nothing more. The form is also not legal advice — interpreting the provisions named here in an individual case remains the responsibility of your organization. A warning notice to this effect appears on page 1 of the PDF.

Where the Content Comes From

From the GenoEasy Academy, Module 4 “Specializing,” Lesson 25. Legal bases cited: § 36 SGB VIII (care plan), § 27 SGB VIII (Section 27 SGB VIII, the entitlement to assistance with upbringing — Hilfe zur Erziehung), § 8a SGB VIII (child-protection duty). For further reading: “Hilfeplanverfahren (§ 36 SGB VIII) — eine rechtliche Betrachtung,” Jugendhilferechtsverein e. V. (a German association specializing in child and youth welfare law).