University of Applied Sciences Potsdam – A Place for Families
The University of Applied Sciences Potsdam sees itself as a family-conscious and family-friendly university that is committed to achieving a sustainable balance between work, teaching, research, studying and family by successfully balancing interests.
The FAMteam: Contact, initial counselling and placement centre for university members
We provide guidance on existing counselling and support services for balancing studies, work and family. We advise student and working parents, pregnant students and employees, expectant fathers and carers. Our services are also aimed at prospective students with children as well as students and employees who are planning a family.
The FAMteam includes Diana Zill as head and central family officer, her deputy Sandra Cartes (Equal Opportunities Officer), student assistant Augusta Dienelt and Prof. Dr. Karin Borck for the professional support of the competence and quality development "Family-friendly university".
Decentralised family representatives work in each department to support the FAMteam:
- Social Sciences and Education: Henriette Sonntag and her deputy Prof. Dr. Annette Dreier
- CITY | BUILDING | CULTURE: Prof.in. Dr. Sabine Cousin
- Civil Engineering: Ulrike Wygasch-Otte
- Design: Prof. Boris Müller and his deputy Prof. Dr. Wiebke Löper
- Information Sciences: Anna-Martina Lentz
- Centre for Further and Continuing Education: Beatrice Jurth
- Student decentralised family representative: Augusta Dienelt
The two educators Theresa Scheinemann and Karolina Plate support the families in the parent-child group, which has been offered in the family room in cooperation with Kinderwelt gGmbH since April 2022. Karolina is also part of the FAMteam for flexible childcare.
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Retrospective
FHP Children Compose Their Own Songs: Successful Autumn Holiday Workshop by the FAMteam
The FAMteam offers a holiday workshop twice a year to bridge the lecture period for students and to relieve employees of the stress of looking after their children during the holidays. This is aimed at FHP children between the ages of 6 and 12 and has been free of charge since 2022. Here, children…
News
Two Free Childcare Places in Day Care from April 2024
Andrea Britz and Steffi Parlitz look after up to 10 children in the private childcare centre in House 5 on the campus of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. This is the right place for families who want their child(ren) to be looked after in a small group, want direct contact with the carer…
Press release
International Girls' Day at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
Wednesday, the 11th of October, is International World Girls' Day. As a global day of action, it gives girls a voice and makes their needs visible. World Girls' Day has existed since 2011 and calls for an international commitment to the rights of girls and young women. The University of Applied…
News
Current Changes in the Use of Family Locations
The reopening of House 3 has resulted in changes to how the family spaces on campus can be used.
Dates
More eventsHealth Day for University Members
FAMteam – Summer Holiday Workshop for 6 – 12-Year-Old Children
FAMteam – Autumn Holiday Workshop for 6 – 12-Year-Old Children
Principles & Mission statement as a family-conscious and family-friendly university
"With the expanded concept of family, we are no longer just talking about the classic mother-father-child triad in the area of family support, but also include all people who take on long-term responsibility for other people in their private lives. This means that family support can no longer be limited to measures to support parents with children, but must also consider the needs of family carers, the activation of fathers beyond the "women's part-time model" or other people with family responsibilities. The extent to which universities should provide programmes for all these cases will certainly need to be discussed. However, the need to address this issue in order to achieve a clear description of the university's tasks and roles is undisputed."
(Statement by the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHE) for the Committee on Innovation, Science, Research and Technology and the Committee on Family, Children and Youth on the motion by the CDU parliamentary group - printed matter 15/675)
Charter FAMILIEN IN DER HOCHSCHULE
Since 2008, the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam has been a member of the FAMILIEN IN DER HOCHSCHULE association, a network of 134 universities and one student union that have signed the FAMILIEN IN DER HOCHSCHULE charter in recent years.
By signing the charter on the 24th of June 2014, the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam is pursuing the goals of
- making work and study opportunities more flexible in order to meet the demands of family responsibilities
- establishing family-friendliness as an essential management task and part of the organisational culture
- As part of this, a central family officer and decentralised departmental family officers have been appointed and family-friendly times, spaces and structures are taken into account in all decisions.
Equal opportunities concept of the FH Potsdam
The overall concept of measures to reconcile family and career is embedded in the equal opportunities statutes of the FH Potsdam.
Current research findings state that, in addition to many other social, socialisation-related, gender-stereotyping and promoting mechanisms, a central cause of the underrepresentation of female academics is that women are still more burdened by family responsibilities than their male colleagues, particularly due to the coincidence of starting a family and beginning a career. The FH Potsdam has therefore included measures to reconcile family and career in its equal opportunities concept under point E, focussing primarily on the expansion of the family-friendly university, which reflects the FH Potsdam's framework concept for reconciling studies/career/teaching/research and family.
Quality standards for equal opportunities and family orientation at Brandenburg's universities
The universities in the state of Brandenburg have set benchmarks with their "Quality Standards for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men at Brandenburg Universities" from 2010. In their further development, these "Quality Standards for Equal Opportunities and Family Orientation" take into account current social developments and the increasing importance and appreciation of diversity. They are based on the research-oriented equal opportunities standards of the German Research Foundation and the "Family in Higher Education" charter signed by all eight universities in Brandenburg, which includes all the diverse forms of family life in our society. In this way, they also contribute to the implementation of the equality policy framework programme for the state of Brandenburg and the Brandenburg state government's mission statement "Equal Opportunities for Women and Men".
The update of the equality standards was signed on the 10th of July 2017 by Dr. Martina Münch (Minister of Science, Research and Culture) and Prof. Dr. Burghilde Wieneke-Toutaoui (Chairwoman of the Brandenburg Rectors' Conference).
Family and university in the state of Brandenburg
In the "Family and University in the State of Brandenburg" network, the family representatives and employees of the family service offices of all eight Brandenburg universities are in regular dialogue. The network meetings serve to exchange experiences, discuss current family policy issues and organise joint training courses.
Contact us
The family office offers counselling on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9.30 am – 1.30 pm , by appointment. If you would like to make an appointment or request counselling outside of office hours, please write to famteam@fh-potsdam.de to let us know what your concerns are and how we can best reach you. In order to make the consultations as personal as possible, we also conduct video consultations via Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
Family representative of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
Specialist support for the "Family-friendly university" competence and quality development programme
Link to the Department of Social and Educational Sciences and the university management
