Welcome - European Network on Family Group Conference

The story of a following family group conference

The first conference happend in the year 2019. The initiator of the conference was a single mom with a little baby, nearly one year old. The mother unfortunately had a chronical illness. She often had to go to the hospital or sometimes she had to call the ambulance in the night, when it was nessecary to have a doctor quickly. At the moment of the first family group conference the mother lived together with her sister. Therefore her sister was able to support her and take care for the little child at any time.

To the family group conference in 2019 the mother invited her sister, her brother in law, her nephew and a friend of her. They made a good plan to support the mother and her her daughter. However the youth welfare office called the family group conference office again in 2021 and asked for a another conference. There had been some changes in the life of the mother and her little daughter. The contact to the mother was established. It turned out that she didn´t live in the flat of her sister anymore. She had an own flat now. So the youth welfare office was worry about the care of the little child.

The mother was agree with the idea to organize another family group conference and asked her sister and husband to join the conference again. Also she wanted her familiy helpers to take part of the conference this time. Finally the conference was organized in three days with the mother and her social network. Everybody was happy about the possibility to hold the responsibilty in there hands and they developed a very individual plan for any emergency. For example: „what should be organized for the case that the daughter is in the kindergarten and her mother has to go tot he hospital?“ or „what would happen with the girl if the mother has to call the doctor in the night and maybe goes tot he hospital?“.

Every involved person got the plan with the whole important contacts and telephone numbers. The youth welfare office was confident about the plan and happy that the care of the little child was saved at any time. The problems oft he family had been solved twice in a effectiv an valued way as wel as the private capibilities got activated.

A story from Germany