[Systemic concepts in residential placement: considerations for pedagogics, counseling and organization]

The paper starts from an analysis of typical problems in residential child care, which can be identified on different system levels (family, family and residential child care unit, family and larger systems, child care as a profession). More recent systems concepts (such as autopoiesis, role of the observer, "fitting", limits of planning in human systems) are used to develop suggestions for everyday practice of residential child care--from intake to dismissal, from crisis intervention to family education, from job satisfaction to management issues.