Children's charity association
The children's aid organization supports children and young people whose souls are suffering. Since 1999, the Children's Fund Association has been offering socially disadvantaged children and their families help through affordable advice, psychotherapy, diagnostics, prevention, riding education and adventure education projects. The aim is to give suffering young people better opportunities and starting conditions for their lives.
The lockdown during the corona pandemic has drastically changed the everyday lives of children and young people. Contact with friends and regular school attendance are important elements of everyday life and the psychological and psychosocial health of young people. A prolonged exclusion from these learning and experience spaces harms children in their cognitive, emotional and social development. The Corona crisis has changed her life significantly in a short time because the familiar structures have broken down.
In addition, a lot has gotten mixed up in the family environment. Conflicts in families arise more frequently in the current situation and can escalate if too much closeness and too few options are available. The necessary learning support is simply not possible for many parents in addition to the home office. Many families felt at the end of their tether. The challenge of combining family and work was too great for many. They felt stressed and longed for friends and relatives. There was a sharp increase in sleep problems, mental illnesses (panic attacks or depression), suicidal thoughts and autoaggressions (cracks) in children and adolescents and their caregivers. In addition, there was an increase in psychological and physical violence against children.
Experts are calling for an expansion of the range of therapy forms via telephone or video chat, which are particularly popular with young people. In addition, there is the expansion of outpatient support systems and forms of stress prevention. We at the Children's Fund have registered acute stressful situations and emergencies due to family disputes and have adapted our therapeutic offer accordingly using additional online and telephone therapies. First international studies assume that the need for psychotherapy will increase enormously in the near future due to the increased stress caused by the crisis.
From today's perspective, it is not yet possible to predict exactly when the pandemic will be able to be brought under control worldwide. But what we are already recognizing is that the pandemic has lasting effects on children and their parents. The number of domestic violence crimes is increasing. Both children and parents are sometimes very insecure, which is reflected, for example, in the increase in anxiety, depression and panic attacks. A second lockdown hovers like a sword of Damocles over Austrian society. No one is able to estimate how the situation at home will affect families in a confined space in the cool winter season. Children as well as parents need a way out and living space next to their own four walls, where they can feel good, relax, let off steam or find peace.
More than ever, associations such as the Children's Fund and its numerous support offers are required in order to be able to de-escalate the increasingly worsening family situation. Creating evasive options and showing courses of action to make the time during the pandemic as positive as possible are our tasks.
In times of crisis like this, we are more dependent than ever on your support, dear readers. It is extremely important to be able to continue offering our work in a sustainable, comprehensive and unrestricted manner.
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