Our guiding principle

In early 2019, the PFH’s specialist committee launched a project to record and issue the basic principles of the work carried out at the PFH, its self-image, values and goals in the form a mission statement. All of our Foundation’s roughly 620 employees were invited to get involved in drawing up a common mission statement – at joint meetings, via an online platform and at the PFH Day (an internal training day held once a year for all PFH employees). The mission statement is now complete and was released on 14 May 2020.

Contact

Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus
Karl-Schrader-Straße 7-8
10781 Berlin
info@pfh-berlin.de

The guiding principle of the Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus:
Committed to tradition

Thinking and acting democratically as well as interacting mindfully with people, things and our environment all form the basis of our work. These basic principles are vulnerable to attack and erosion! All PFH employees are thus actively committed to preserving them. This ethical attitude is expressed in the opening up of latitude, in the trust placed in the creative powers of people and in the enabling of social influence.

Goals and tasks

The PFH founders gathered around Henriette Schrader-Breymann were inspired to create training courses for socio-educational professions and related socio-educational institutions. This has stimulated new answers to social questions.

Today, as an association that offers both training and hands-on practice, we see our task in creating good conditions for development as well as participation opportunities for all the people in our sphere of influence. This includes taking a stand on socio-political issues.

Resources

Our most important resource is people and their creative spirit. We are convinced that everyone brings something to the table and can learn something new. We recognise the inherent opportunities that diversity offers. Our professionalism is based on the systematic combination of diverse skills in the interests of achieving a high level of quality. What we do aims at “free, thinking, self-motivated people” (Friedrich Fröbel).

Organisational culture and our understanding of leadership

Our organisational culture is based on motivating all employees to contribute their skills responsibly and to develop common goals. PFH managers are tasked with creating the necessary framework conditions on this basis and with monitoring the achievement of objectives. They act to achieve the benchmark of the convergence of content and form. They justify decisions in a comprehensible way and take into account the personal responsibility of staff members.

Hallmarks

Anyone approaching the PFH campus is greeted from afar by the “Child Kings and Queens”. These ceramic figures, designed by students of the vocational college, represent our educational approach of perceiving the individual strengths of each child, which is a core element of the Early Excellence approach.

We offer both training and hands-on facilities. From the very beginning, combining socio- educational training and practice as the interplay of “head, heart and hand” (Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi) has been a guiding principle of the PFH.

Children, adolescents and adults are given attentive support when they arrive at our facilities, e.g. through a careful process of acclimatisation, an individual admission process or welcome events – for a good start (in life).

What people need can vary a lot. This is reflected in the diverse profile of our practices. We always stand up for children’s rights as well as human rights and actively oppose discrimination and all forms of group-related misanthropy.

The PFH offers many different forms of participation, such as a cross-departmental specialist committee, a board of trustees representing the society and committees for involving children, young people and adults. This broad culture of participation is our contribution towards a democratic society.

We work on developing educational networks in neighbourhood-based, national and international cooperation. Because we can only reach for the stars together.

Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus, Berlin, May 2020

The guiding principle of the Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus: Committed to tradition

Goals and tasks

Resources

Organisational culture and our understanding of leadership

Hallmarks

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The guiding principle of the Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus:
Committed to tradition