Deutsch

Using the cantons of Geneva, St. Gallen and Uri as examples, this article describes the development of legal instruments within the residential care sector for children and ado- lescents since 1940, with a strong emphasis on the means of the state to secure the quality of care. The goal of this article is to show that the quality standards resulting from the legislation processes were a product of political debates in which child protection was weighed against organizational and financial considerations.

This paper discusses the importance of funding and governance intentions at the federal level for intercantonal coordination of the residential care sector for minors. It examines the interpretations of the principle of subsidiarity underlying the measures adopted, the fiscal implications of federal policy, and asks what unintended effects the interventions caused at lower political levels and, above all, in the intercantonal network of relations. The article shows how subsidiarity is a product of social policy compromises and fiscal policy intentions.

Less than a year after the end of World War II, a diverse group around Robert Walter Corti (1910–1990) founded the Kinderdorf Pestalozzi (Children’s Village Pestalozzi), a small village for children affected by the war, above the hills of Trogen, Switzerland. Among others, the reform pedagogue and pacifist Elisabeth Rotten was involved in devel- oping the conception of the Children’s Village. As a result of learning about the atrocities during World War I, Rotten got involved in various reformist movements such as the women’s movement, pacifist groups, and progressive educational circles.