The youth welfare office was happy to comply with this request and invited Dr. Andreas Schick to Idar-Oberstein with funding from the federal "Catching up after Corona" program. He is the head of the Heidelberg Prevention Center, which, among other things, conducts training courses on the "Faustlos" prevention programs he developed. A total of thirteen educators and three social workers from the daycare center took part in the training course in Idar-Oberstein.
Dr. Schick pointed out to all participants right at the beginning of the training that "Faustlos" is more than just violence prevention. The children not only learn specific violence prevention skills, but also general behavioral skills and the corresponding linguistic expression. According to Schick, it is crucial to always review one's own behavior and attitudes and to focus on the resources of the individual child when implementing the program in daycare centers.
The "Faustlos" curriculum is a curriculum developed for daycare centers that aims to reduce impulsive and aggressive behavior in preschool children and improve social and emotional skills. The program teaches basic age- and development-appropriate knowledge and skills in the areas of empathy, impulse control and dealing with anger and rage. "Faustlos" helps children to resolve difficult situations and conflicts without violence, to treat each other fairly and to empathize with others. Not all children can learn these important behaviors in dealing with others in their family and practice them over and over again. The message of the prevention concept is aimed at them - and also at their parents.
Many daycare centers in the city are already working with the materials from the Heidelberg Prevention Center. In addition to learning the theoretical basics from educational science and developmental psychology, the daycare center staff were also able to try out individual lessons in practice in the form of role plays and intensive small group work. The children were taught how to use the Faustlos materials, consisting of various pictures showing conflict situations and the two hand puppets "Wilder Willi" and "Ruhiger Schneck", which provide the impetus for discussions in the group. This playful approach provides the children with a real-life learning method. It helps the children to learn a wide range of social and emotional skills in small steps and thus expand their repertoire of behavior to prevent violence. The teachers also work with the children to learn how to deal with anger and rage, control impulses and show empathy for others.
After the training, all participants were certain that the professional training program "Faustlos" was a further step towards peaceful coexistence and an important contribution to the prevention of violence.