Crisis foster mother

“With us, the children have stability for the first time”

Kathrin Raab with her current foster daughter and long-term foster son Lukas.(Bild: privat)

Violence, addiction, poverty - not all children are in good hands with their biological parents. This is where Kathrin Raab steps in as a crisis foster mother.

For more than four years, Kathrin Raab and her husband have been giving a home to children who cannot stay with their biological parents - for example because they have been abused or neglected. The 37-year-old is a crisis foster mother.

"Our biological daughter was born prematurely. We didn't want to risk that again, so we opted for long-term care," she explains. This is how son Lukas (name changed) came into the family - and with him the desire to help other children get a good start in life.

Husband Matthias helps to care for the children.(Bild: privat)

Clarifying the situation
To date, Raab has accompanied 17 children between the ages of a few months and three years for a part of their journey. On average, they stay with her for around four months. "It takes that long to clarify the situation and return the child to their parents, a long-term foster family or a supervised shared flat," explains Ingrid Pöschmann, spokesperson for the Vienna Child and Youth Welfare Service.

900 foster parents

are available in Vienna. These include long-term and crisis care as well as kinship care. The city is urgently looking for more. Information at www.wien.gv.at

Lots of time, love and patience
If a child needs help, it happens quickly. "The social worker can be with me and the child within half an hour," she says. Some come in a terrible state, are frightened or very hungry. But others are also open and want to play straight away. "The children need a lot of time, patience and love," says Raab. Many of them are experiencing this and stability for the first time in their young lives.

Memories of protégés
The crisis foster mother has taken footprints and handprints of each child, which hang on the kitchen wall along with a photo of the little ones. Raab: "For me, the best thing is when I see that the child has developed well with me and has been placed with a loving foster family or reunited with their parents."