Jörg Fegert

Jörg Michael Fegert (born 15 November 1956, Heilbronn) is a German child and adolescent psychiatrist, psychotherapist and university professor.

From 1977 to 1981, Fegert studied medicine and sociology at the University of Nantes and the Freie Universität of Berlin (FUB).

He completed his specialist training at the Department of Child and Adolescent Neurology and Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the FUB, at the Children's Hospital of the FUB and at the Psychiatric Hospital of the FUB.

In 1987, he received his doctorate with a thesis on migration and psychosocial adaptation.

He has also influenced the social legal development in this field of youth welfare in Germany since 1990.

In 1991, he became a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy.

He is also qualified as a specialist in adult psychosomatics and psychotherapy.

In 1995 Fegert obtained the "venia legend" at the FUB.

In 1997 Jörg M. Fegert moved to Rostock University and became head of the department for child and adolescent neuropsychiatry and psychotherapy at the medical faculty.

In 1998, Fegert became managing director of the Center for Mental Health Neurology at the Medical Faculty of the University of Rostock and remained there until 2001.

Fegert is the founder and Medical Director of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychotherapy at the University of Ulm (continuously since 2001).

His work focuses on child protection issues, in particular sexual abuse of children and adolescents.

He is the founder of the Competence Center for Child Protection in Medicine of the German State of Baden-Württemberg.

The main focus of the Center is the epidemiology of adverse childhood experiences and the dissemination of knowledge.

Another focus of his work is participation, integration and inclusion of children and adolescents with different and multiple forms of disability.

In 2010, in response to a child sexual abuse scandal in Germany, Fegert served as an expert member on the round table on child sexual abuse and was in charge of the accompanying research of the official contact point of the government's Independent Commissioner for Child Sexual Abuse Issues.

Since then, he has been in charge of the accompanying research for the helpline of the current Independent Commissioner for Sexual Child Abuse Issues (UBSKM) J. W. Rörig.

He has also been a member of the Advisory Board of the Independent Commissioner since its constitution.

Two of the main areas of focus of his work at the University of Ulm are e-learning activities and the establishment of interactive platforms, e.g. a complaints platform for students at the University of Ulm within the suggestion and complaint management.

Another e-learning program was developed for the Centre for Child Protection at the Pontifical University of Gregoriana and is having a worldwide impact.

An online overview of two main topics dissemination and knowledge transfer also exists.

Since the introduction of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, he has advocated, for example, a stronger consideration of the traumatic background of children in institutions in youth welfare in an expert opinion on the 13th Report on Children and Adolescents of the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth in Germany.

Fegert is the head of the Competence Center Child Abuse and Neglect (com.can), which was initially funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the state of Baden-Württemberg for several years and was consolidated in 2016 with the establishment of two professorships at the Department for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychotherapy at the University Hospital Ulm.

He is the project manager of the Medical Child Protection Hotline funded by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth, which offers practical advice in individual child protection cases for healthcare professionals.

He sold the institute in 2016 but supports it with his expertise.

After serving six years as deputy chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for Family Issues at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth, Fegert became the chairman of the board in 2017.

Fegert founded the first open-access online journal in child and adolescent mental health with support by a grant from the German research fund.

He founded the Dreiländerinstitut Jugend-Familie-Gesellschaft-Recht GmbH in Switzerland, which offers professional expertise, consulting services, content development for e-learning programs, coaching in crisis situations and continuing education in German-speaking countries, i.e. in Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

The prevention and intervention strategy for child protection with individual counseling and courses that include practical cases and are digitally disseminated, was highlighted by the WHO in the Status Report on the Prevention of Child Abuse in Europe (Sethi et al., 2018) as a positive example and was, after only one year in practice, described as a success story.

He is co-founder and co-spokesperson of the Center for Trauma Research at the University of Ulm, a transdisciplinary initiative to improve research on the effects of physical and psychological trauma, and the interaction between physical injuries and psychological trauma.

The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts also supported this initiative with a permanent professorship, the first professorship for trauma and acute child and adolescent psychiatry/psychotherapy in Germany.

In 2018, Fegert was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany.