Welcome - European Network on Family Group Conference

Emergency in the Emergency Stationary Group 

Jason and Patrick are two little boys at the age of 4 and 6. They are very active and they live with their mom, since their father has left them. They suffer from a kind of ADH and their mom was overtaxed with their upbringing and the daily things of life like household, appointments and so on. The responsible socialworker was desperately searching for a place in day care for the kids to lessen the pressure for the mom, but still nothing was available. So it came the day when she broke down because of the stress, not eating and sleeping and permanent being alone with her two kids and the responsibilities of life. 

She was able to call her socialworker and ask for help. 

The kids were taken to an emergency stationary group to make sure that they are supplied and taken care of while the mom had to spend some time in the hospital. But it was not really going well fort them, it was overcrowded and the staff was not able to build a good relationship, because there were just too many kids. They felt really unwell and behaved extremely challenging, posing a threat to themselves and others, they could not stay. 

An short notice emergency meeting was held and the idea of an FGC (by a very spontaneous and experienced coordinaror) was introduced, the family and socialworker agreed. 

The FGC took place after very little preparation time. 

The question was: A plan for the emergency situation and to figure out who can support the mom, to share the responsibilities and if she gets sick again, who will be looking after the kids? 

The preparation of the FGC showed, that there were some people willing to support the mom, like a neighbour, her aunt and several other family members from near and far even though they had their own burdens. 

So they got together in a FGC and made an emercency plan for Jason and Patrick. They offered their support for going once or twice a week to the groceryshop with the mom and they made a plan of who will be informed to pick up the kids if the mom gets sick. 

They also found a solution to releave the mother regulary from the care for the kids in taking them to the playground and do activities like playing soccer with them to power them out and to give the mother the chance to recover and recharge by time for herself.. 

The mother was now even mentally more relaxed because she knew, that in the case of emercency their will be a network around her for supporting her and her kids and to make sure, that her boys are taken care of if she was in need. 

(the names in this story are fictional)

A story from Germany