Dr. Axel Schmidt

Dr. Axel Schmidt holds a doc­to­ra­te in human sci­en­ces and has a degree in busi­ness admi­nis­tra­ti­on and a degree in psy­cho­lo­gy. He began his care­er in 1994 as a Mar­ke­ting Sci­ence Exe­cu­ti­ve at BBDO in New York. In 1996 he moved to the BBDO in Düs­sel­dorf as Mar­ke­ting Sci­ence Mana­ger and Stra­te­gic Plan­ner, and from 1997 to 1999 he held a staff posi­ti­on at BBDO Ger­ma­ny Hol­ding, the lar­gest com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons com­pa­ny in Ger­ma­ny. Until 2020, Dr. Axel Schmidt pro­ject mana­ger and part­ner at the manage­ment con­sul­tancy Bat­ten & Com­pa­ny, which is part of BBDO Ger­ma­ny. Sin­ce 2010 Dr. Axel Schmidt works as an expert in fami­ly courts. In 2020 he publishes with Prof. em. Dr. Karl West­hoff (Uni­ver­si­ty of Dres­den) the volu­me “Inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry child wel­fa­re — empi­ri­cal results and instru­ments for legal prac­ti­ce in the case of sepa­ra­ti­on of par­ents” (with a fore­word by Prof. Dr. Bernd von Hein­tschel-Hein­egg, pre­si­ding judge of the Bava­ri­an Supre­me Court in reti­re­ment and chair­man Judge of the hig­her regio­nal court). In addi­ti­on, he works as a lec­tu­rer for the trai­ning of social pedago­gues at the Nie­der­rhein Uni­ver­si­ty of Appli­ed Sci­en­ces and publishes num­e­rous publi­ca­ti­ons on com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on and fami­ly court issues.

ww.familiengutachten.eu

Interdisciplinary child welfare

Published by Axel Schmidt in The­ra­py

Schmidt, A. & West­hoff, K. (2020). Inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry child wel­fa­re: Empi­ri­cal results for legal prac­ti­ce in the case of sepa­ra­ti­on of par­ents. Baden-Baden: Nomos. With a fore­word by Prof. Dr. Bernd von Hein­tschel-Hein­egg (reti­red pre­si­ding judge of the Bava­ri­an Supre­me Court and reti­red pre­si­ding judge of the Munich Hig­her Regio­nal Court for Sta­te Security).

This volu­me clo­ses the gap bet­ween norms, juris­pru­den­ti­al inter­pre­ta­ti­ons and empi­ri­cal results from the human sci­en­ces that are capa­ble of rea­ching a con­sen­sus to con­cre­ti­se the inde­fi­ni­te legal con­cept of child wel­fa­re. The first part of the book pres­ents the legal basis and the judgments of the Fede­ral Con­sti­tu­tio­nal Court and the Fede­ral Court of Jus­ti­ce for the wel­fa­re of the child; they are the frame­work for the second, lar­ger part, which pres­ents the empi­ri­cal facts from the human sci­en­ces in a com­pre­hen­si­ble and well-struc­tu­red way. The nor­ma­ti­ve deter­mi­na­ti­on and case-rela­ted inter­pre­ta­ti­on of the child’s best inte­rests can only suc­ceed if know­ledge is used that rela­tes to the social rea­li­ty of the child, i.e. psy­cho­lo­gi­cal, edu­ca­tio­nal and socio­lo­gi­cal know­ledge. The human sci­en­ces pro­vi­de a value sys­tem that cor­re­sponds to the legal decis­i­on-making cri­te­ria and thus a yard­stick for asses­sing the best inte­rests of the child in indi­vi­du­al cases and pla­cing the decis­i­on-making on a fact-based basis. The human-sci­en­ti­fic con­tent pre­sen­ted here, which is used to fill the legal con­cept of the best inte­rests of the child, with­stands the legal point of view and can the­r­e­fo­re be used by lawy­ers in order to gua­ran­tee legal secu­ri­ty. This inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry approach of a human-sci­en­ti­fic com­men­ta­ry on the legal child wel­fa­re cri­te­ria can be made available as a working aid to the fol­lo­wing tar­get groups: fami­ly jud­ges, pro­ce­du­ral coun­se­lors, cont­act nur­ses, sup­ple­men­ta­ry carers, experts, media­tors, youth wel­fa­re offi­cers, lawy­ers, poli­ti­ci­ans, parents.