Will fewer families foster refugees in Germany?

Officials don't necessarily expect that last Monday's ax attack on a train near Würzburg will scare German families away from hosting young refugees who arrive unaccompanied.

"It is all still too fresh," said Helga Siemens-Weibring, the director of the family, education and parenting division of a regional branch of the Protestant social welfare organization Diakonie.

Other social workers gave similar responses. "We still have more offers from potential foster families than we need," said Udo Stein, the director of the youth welfare office in Bonn.

And Peter Heinssen, the director of an organization that helps find foster families for the youth welfare office in Berlin, said, "Würzburg has had no effect on our work thus far."

Heinssen said there had, however, already been a slight downturn in the number of foster families interested in taking in displaced children before the Würzburg attack by a 17-year-old thought to be from Afghanistan. "After the sexual assaults in Cologne, the willingness went down markedly," Heinssen said.

'Willingness to integrate'

The social worker said it was the responsibility of the police and Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, to assess children's potential for radicalization. "Of course, if we were to notice something, we would report it," Heinssen said. "We have to report it. But so far that has not been an issue."

Siemens-Weibring, who has two sons herself, said it was difficult enough keeping track of one's own children. "What must it be like with foster children - 50-70 percent of whom have had terrible experiences with war and flight?" she said. "They do not all show their trauma in the same way." And, she said, the teenager who injured five people on the train near Würzburg hadn't raised any flags with social workers or his foster family. "From everything that I have read in the press, the attacker is supposed to have learned German very quickly and shown a willingness to integrate," she said. "There were no signs of radicalization."

Heinssen picked up on that, saying that people don't necessarily discuss their more disturbing thoughts with relative strangers. "Seventeen-year-olds have a great degree of self-control," he said. "If you host a youth for two weeks, you cannot tell if they have somehow been radicalized." He added that "it isn't until a young refugee is firmly anchored in the family that they let their stories out."

The selection process

Foster parents are picked according to very strict guidelines. Unaccompanied minors are first tended to by local youth welfare offices after registering with the government. The agencies then vet potential foster parents. "First we look at the personalities of the host parents," said Stein, of Bonn's youth welfare office. "They must be able to cope with pressure. There is no room for 'trial and error' in this instance." Living conditions must be suitable as well. Parents must have adequate financial means and clean and orderly homes with enough space for children to have their own rooms. Foster parents in "stable relationships" are preferred.

Hosts receive support from the youth welfare offices. "We are there for the families right from the start," Stein said. "Social education workers and consultants are by their side every step of the way." Foster families receive intensive and ongoing training on how to deal with difficult situations that may arise while caring for displaced children.

Diakonie will soon be conducting a major study that will follow foster families and conduct research on the specific problems that they may have in caring for refugees. Siemens-Weibring hopes to gain new insight into questions about how foster parents can react when specific problems arise with young refugees.

Klaus Wolf, who teaches education at the University of Siegburg and conducts research on children raised in unfavorable circumstances, said that when issues arise responsibility for dealing with them cannot lie with local youth welfare offices or foster parents alone: There has to be a very strong support network - one consisting of educational counselors, therapists, psychologists, traumatologists and psychiatrists.