SOS Children’s Villages launches daytime care in Eisenstadt

SOS Children’s Villages has launched a new daytime care service at its facility in Eisenstadt, supporting children and young people who might otherwise be removed from their families or helping them return home, ORF reported.

Children can now receive care in a group during the week and go home in the evenings. The service is a halfway point between support for parents raising children at home and residential care, said Bernadette Kalcher, the organisation’s pedagogical director.

SOS Children’s Villages has provided similar support in Oberwart for more than five years. Burgenland director Marek Zeliska said the organisation had learned that more investment in prevention was needed. The aim is to help families avoid children being placed in care and to support those already removed from their homes in returning to their families.

The provincial child and youth welfare service will cover the programme’s infrastructure and staffing costs. Regional councillor Leonhard Schneemann said the cost was expected to be about 700,000 euros. Burgenland University of Applied Sciences will accompany the programme and assess it scientifically.

SOS Children’s Villages provides care to 250 children across Burgenland.