These facts speak for themselves – and for us.
Children and their families are immersed into a stressful, completely new life situation after a diagnosis of their incurable disease. They bear an incredibly heavy load.
24hour attention, fatigue, chronical lack of sleep, isolation / friends withdrawing, no more individual freedom, more fear of the future, partner conflicts, problems organizing everyday life, siblings having to step back in their needs. Some 500 children in the Hamburg area live in this situation. (In all of Germany there are 22.600 children who live with an incurable disease).
To shoulder the burden together – until the very last and beyond
Not only consolation for their souls, but also a lessening of the burden of everyday chores and gaining a little personal freedom back, even if only for a couple of hours, is a help for parents and siblings. Our support will always be given in response to your individual needs. It is the family which decides on the course to take together. Familienhafen e.V. as the first out patient childrens' hospice in Hamburg commits itself to this aim.
Our coordinator sets up the first contact, and support possibilities are worked out together. If needed, for a sick child and one or more sibling(s), more than one pilots will go to a family.
After that there is a date made with the volunteer pilots, the family and the coordinator, to clarify possible open questions.
The captains of Familienhafen
This is the way to the captains of Familienhafen.
The course is set by the families
The tasks for volunteer pilots in a family range from accompanying the diseased children, playing with their siblings and taking them on excursions, conversation partners for parents and children and many other things.
Since June 2009 we have begun our work in and with the families.
Our work does not consist of medical care or housekeeping activities. Our main aim is to offer families with children with life-threatening diseases psychosocial relief and accompaniment in their own home situation. Here the families set the course and we accept that families are primarily responsible for the care of their children. Our goal is to maintain for families their life quality, as long as possible, or improve it.
Before our volunteer pilots go into accompanying families, they will receive training for about a hundred hours, during which they are prepared comprehensively for their work with the family. Among other topics, they will engage in their own reflection upon the themes of dying, death and grieving, forms of communication, and work in childrens' hospices.
