"A lot touches me"

New head of crisis support also “on the front line” herself

Katja Sieper (39) took over the Upper Austrian crisis support service. She has been working in this field for 13 years.

(Bild: Wolfgang Simlinger)

Katja Sieper (39) is the new head of Krisenhilfe Oberösterreich. Up to 120 Upper Austrians call the organization every day, often with suicidal thoughts or other mental health problems. In an interview with "Krone", the new head reveals how she deals with this.

Her Master's degree in Social Work brought the Bavarian-born nurse Katja Sieper to Upper Austria, where she "got stuck" and has now taken over the management of the Upper Austrian crisis support service.

"Krone": Ms Sieper, you have been helping to set up the crisis support service since 2016 and have also been active in operations. Will that change now?

Katja Sieper: If you mean whether I will lean back in the boss's chair and send the others forward - certainly not. I will remain on the emergency services and want to know what my employees have to deal with.

You write that crisis support is to become an important competence center for suicide prevention in Upper Austria - is the issue that big?

If you consider that there are still three times more suicides than road deaths and the figures are hardly changing, there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Many organizations are working on this topic or offer support in crises.

That is why we have brought together the most important players in this sector - pro mente, Exit-sozial, the Red Cross, the Upper Austrian telephone counseling service and the emergency counseling service - to form a crisis support service. We are the umbrella, so to speak, and ensure that people seeking help get to the right place as quickly as possible.

This saves those affected many phone calls.

Anyone who gets up and calls in a crisis must not be sent around. Everything has to be quick and uncomplicated, we make sure of that.

How often does the crisis support line ring?

We've had days with 120 calls. In January, we counted 2036 phone calls, plus 200 mobile on-site support calls and many responses to our online services, such as chats.

When you go out on a mission yourself, how do you deal with the often dramatic experiences?

I'm touched by a lot, but I try not to take anything home with me. Supervision, talking to colleagues or simply documenting things helps. Because I don't have to remember what I write down. But I do know that the day I'm not touched by fate is the day I stop.

Kommentar

Wir muten der Seele viel mehr zu

The wave of refugees, coronavirus, the war in Ukraine, inflation - and lots of other adversity in between. It feels like we've been stuck in crisis mode for years.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV, Alexander Schwarzl, Markus Wenzel)

Even though a lot of things may roll off your back, everything leaves its mark. When personal problems - and perhaps several of them at once - pop up, even the most balanced and coolest among us can start to falter. We just can't be too proud to admit it to ourselves when we can't cope without help.
We demand much more from our souls than from our bodies. But we have to look after both, as soul and body are inextricably linked - at least in earthly life.