The corona pandemic left deep scars on some families in Upper Austria. Overwhelm, conflicts, dealing with media or even learning problems and school stress trigger crisis situations. To ensure that there is no escalation, mobile family coaching has been offering those affected free assistance since 2022. Due to the good response and the increasing demand, the advisory service is now being expanded again, as State Councilor for Child Protection Michael Lindner (SP) announced at a press conference on Tuesday.
Fully booked but no waiting list
Mobile family coaching — consisting of a hotline, personal appointments and an advice bus that is available, for example, in front of schools or at events — was started in 2022 in the Innviertel. The need was particularly great in this region because, among other things, advisory services were very sparse, says Lindner. 521 initial contacts via the hotline and 1,600 hours of coaching were handled by the experienced social educators from the Diakonie Zentrum Spattstrasse. “We were fully booked from the start, but so far we have managed without a waiting list. We are very proud of that,” says Diakonie team leader Marisa Zerza.
Last year, mobile family coaching was expanded to Grieskirchen, Eferding, Urfahr-Environment and Perg, which increased the number of hotline contacts to 1,177 and the number of coaching hours to 3,970. In two further stages, mobile family coaching is to be expanded to the whole of Upper Austria, according to Child Protection State Councilor Lindner.
6 to 13 year olds severely affected
More than half of the consultation appointments concerned the 6 to 13 year old age group. “During the transition from elementary to middle school, a lot was lost for young people during the Corona pandemic and they had to adapt to a completely new environment,” says Zerza from Diakonie.
Since April 2024, families have been relieved beyond the children’s 18th birthday. In addition, the project was expanded to all kindergartens and crèches in the Innviertel. “Even before April, many people contacted us and expressed their interest in us coming to the kindergarten,” says Tea Smith, project manager from the Social Initiative.
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Source: Nachrichten
