Reform presents

Offering foster children an alternative home

State Councillor for Social Affairs Katharina Wiesflecker with Professor Klaus Wolf and Alexandra Wucher(Bild: VLK)

The number of foster families has declined in recent years. New models are now intended to help foster children find a temporary or permanent home. 

The reform process to restructure the foster care system took a good year. The results were presented on Thursday by Katharina Wiesflecker, State Councillor for Social Affairs, together with social pedagogue Prof. Klaus Wolf and Children's Village Managing Director Alexandra Wucher.

One of the innovations concerns the forms of care, which have been expanded from two to four. For example, there is now standby care (up to two years), which is intended for children whose welfare is at risk and it is not clear when the girl or boy will be able to return to their familiar surroundings.

With respite care, the focus of the child's life remains with the parents or previous caregivers. The time spent in the foster family is adapted to the child's needs.

Permanent care is when a girl or boy is to be placed in a foster family for an indefinite period of time. A return to the parents is not planned for the time being.

The service of kinship and network care was presented as an innovation. Here, relatives or close caregivers take over the care of the adolescent.

Current figures

In Vorarlberg, 176 children and young people are being cared for in permanent foster care relationships (including kinship care), with a further 12 children being placed in crisis foster families.

A "variety of family models" was also promoted. This means that foster children should not only be placed with "traditional families", but also with same-sex couples, people with a queer identity and families with a migration background.

Single people or adults living in shared accommodation are also targeted. "We are trying to attract more people to this special task through new forms of care and improved framework conditions," explained Alexandra Wucher from the children's village.