Peter A. climbs the steps to the first floor, he opens the door to one of the five rooms. “That’s it,” he says, looking around the room. A desk with a chair in front of it, a bed with a neatly fluffed duvet and pillow, and a sofa bed across from it. There is a carpet slightly offset between the sofa bed and the bed. It’s gray with a few sprinkles of white and quite large, the yarn is long and dense, like a flokati. Peter A. explains that he had assembled the new desk just a few days before. A screw slipped out of his hand and landed on the carpet. Now he’s laughing. “I just couldn’t find her again!” Swallowed by the fluffy comfort of the carpet.
Peter A. and his wife Susanne A. are stand-by foster parents, there are ten in total in the Ebersberg district. They are ready when things have to be done quickly: If a child or young person is threatened with acute danger and should stay with their own parents, the employees of the district youth welfare office (KJA) have to take them into care in order to ensure the child’s welfare for the time being. This means: The child is first taken from its family until the situation at home has been defused. In the meantime, the child can live with a close relative, for example, or with a stand-by foster family.
Where exactly the As live in the district and their real names should not be in the newspaper – that would be too dangerous for the foster children and also for themselves. Because it sometimes happens that legal guardians make threats when the responsible youth welfare office takes their child into care child initiates.
Taking into care is the last resort and is comparatively rare
“Taking care can take anywhere from a day to a year,” explains Florian Robida. He is head of the Ebersberg district youth welfare office. “It varies from case to case.” He emphasizes that taking into care is always the last resort and is extremely rare compared to the total number of cases in which the KJA is involved.
You could call it a coincidence that the As became stand-by foster parents – it definitely sounds like an unusual story. At that time, as parents of a young child, the two sought advice from the youth welfare office themselves. After some time, she asked her family therapist in charge if they could imagine becoming foster parents. The two declined without much thought. The topic was not off the table yet. At home, her own child in particular thought the idea was great, as Susanne A. explains. They had consulted within the family for a long time, but at some point they became too curious. Finally, the couple applied.
The foster child service takes care of the foster parents
This was followed by an initial information meeting with two employees from the foster children service – an organizational unit within the youth welfare office that exclusively deals with foster families. After that, the As attended a two-day preparatory seminar with other potential foster parents. “We were the only ones who said from the start that we would only consider stand-by care,” says Susanne A.
According to Susanne Müller-Hertling, couples who have an unfulfilled desire to have children are often interested in full-time care. She works in the foster children service and looks after family A. In contrast to standby foster parents, full-time foster parents look after affected children over a longer period of time. By the way, the KJA is always looking for such full-time foster parents, as Robida adds – because parents are more willing to take on the care of a child for a shorter period of time than for a long-term admission. Every foster family, whether full-time or on standby, receives financial compensation, the amount is determined by the responsible youth welfare office. In Ebersberg, the daily rate for on-call care is around 75 euros, and a little less for full-time care.
It’s a long road to a couple being on-call foster parents
After the preparatory seminar, there were five more assessment interviews for the As and a lot of documents to fill out and submit, such as a medical certificate or an extended certificate of good conduct. “It’s a long process,” says Müller-Hertling. But for good reason: It is important that the parents are absolutely sure about their plan, because after the experience that led to their being taken into care, the children need a stable environment with solid contacts. This is the only way to create closeness and security. If the foster parents suddenly jump off the foster child after two days, that is of course anything but expedient.
The arrival of the children in the on-call foster families is done either by the police or by the employees of the district youth welfare office. If Robida himself is called to a case at night or at weekends because of suspected child endangerment, it sometimes happens that he proactively calls a standby foster family and asks if he can come by with a child in a good hour. While the foster families are contacted during normal office hours by the employees of the two specialist teams, the on-call service is the task of the head of the youth welfare office, Florian Robida, and Martin Gansel, head of the educational youth welfare department.
The As have been stand-by foster parents since 2014
The first foster child came to the As in 2014. It was a daycare-age child whose single parent turned to the youth welfare office for help. The child dropped in for a few hours in the afternoons for a good three months to play. “We are quite creative and in this case the help offered relieved the overwhelmed parent and was therefore also the best decision for the child,” says Müller-Hertling. Since then, several dozen foster children have come under the As.
As a rule, the cases are knitted very differently. It just so happens, says Robida, that every child who is placed in a stand-by foster home has a bag to carry. Ultimately, acute child welfare hazards were behind the cases. “It’s not if the kid didn’t have a jacket on.” The children and young people are often quite “creative in their behavior”, as he puts it. In any case, the foster parents are not left alone, there is intensive care by the foster children service and regular supervision with a supervisor provided by the KJA.
The As can confirm that the package from the foster children usually makes itself felt in some way. It starts with young people who cannot read and understand the S-Bahn map and are therefore always late. Or that some foster children have a lack of awareness of personal hygiene. The police even searched their home twice. “But the Zwergal can’t do anything about all that,” says Peter A. Somebody just has to teach them, then it would usually work out.
Some children have been in contact with their foster parents for years
The As’s approach seems to be working, as even now, many years later, their first foster child occasionally visits or calls. There are other former foster children of the As who sometimes reach out by phone, with two of them they are actually in closer contact. “When the children want to be close to us, we’re there, but we don’t actively call out to anyone,” says Susanne A. “You have to be able to let them go.”
Saying goodbye is a big topic in on-call care, even in theory at the preparatory seminars. Nothing is being glossed over, says Müller-Hertling. “It was clear from the start that the children would have to walk again at some point,” says Peter A. Everyone has to decide for themselves whether they can handle it. The Aces can. “You go with a perspective,” says Peter A.
But why are the As doing this? Always being flexible, never knowing if the youth welfare office will call that night and ask for on-call care for a child, getting involved again and again with a child that you soon have to say goodbye to – why all this effort? “They just give you an incredible amount in return, that’s the nice thing,” says Susanne A. She tells of one of her foster children who wrote a letter to say goodbye and secretly left it for her. Susanne and Peter A. were incredibly touched by what this eleven-year-old girl had written. “If you get something like this as feedback, so to speak, then it’s definitely worth it.”