The Sofa Foundation offers family care services (DAF) and works with various cantons (currently AG, SG, SH, ZH) to find placements for children. It has its own pool of foster families throughout German-speaking Switzerland and can draw on many years of experience in supporting foster children, including those placed with relatives.
If a child needs to be placed outside their family, it is very important for their psychosocial development that they maintain stable social relationships. These have a stabilising effect on identity development and psychosocial stress.
Important relationships may exist with non-relatives (e.g. friends, school, neighbours, hobbies) in the social environment and/or with relatives (e.g. cousins, aunt/uncle, grandparents). While the former are located in the foster child’s social environment or living environment (neighbourhood, place of residence, school), relatives may live within or outside the child’s living environment. The project therefore focuses on the following types of foster families:
A: Related foster families from the child’s social environment
B: Related foster families outside the child’s living environment
C: Non-related foster family from the child’s social environment
The future service will include a systematic assessment by a specialised team. The possibilities of placement in one of the above-mentioned types of foster family will be explored with the involvement of the child and their caregivers. If the assessment results in a foster care placement, this will be professionally supported.
The Sofa Foundation will be supported throughout the project by the ZHAW Institute for Childhood, Youth and Family. The following project phases are planned:
In phase 1, the assessment service will be developed, a specialist assessment team will be put together and support for the new foster care arrangements will be developed.
In phase 2, this service will be tested in a pilot phase.
In phase 3, the assessment and support processes and tools will be evaluated and optimised based on the findings. In phase 4, the programme will be rolled out by providing information on the current status of the project at the DAF professional association’s exchange meetings, presenting it at the DAF professional association’s symposium and to the cantonal authorities in French-speaking Switzerland, and offering further training for professionals.
