The SOS Mother Profession

Photo: D. SANSONI "I can describe my tasks rather briefly: It is the everyday life of a single mother with five children, who is, however, in a financially secure position and can rely on an extensive network of support and help. I can attend to child raising without having the double burden of being a working woman and having a family, since my family is at the same time my profession. The children's life histories, which most often were not at all easy, have left their marks on them. Yet my family and I live according to the motto: 'As much normality as possible'. We are a special form, we are aware of that, but we try to live our life as normally as possible, just like the others do. And that includes just everything: household, school, tears, ups and downs, joy, pain, laughing, singing, dancing - everything." (An SOS mother from Austria) Building up stable relationships, developing family bonds - this is the goal that SOS Children's Villages pursues, with the greatest demand lying on the SOS mothers: Every child who is admitted to an SOS Children's Village lives together with brothers and sisters and his SOS mother. She takes on the tasks of the natural parents on their behalf when they are no longer able to look after their children and becomes the person the children entrusted to her care can refer to and rely on. Photo: D. Sansoni SOS Children's Villages looks for women to become SOS mothers, whose personalities and ways of dealing with life are such that the children can orient themselves to them. An SOS mother passes on a part of herself to the children through the relationship she builds up with each individual child. At the same time, she is a childcare professional who, by using her educational knowledge, is able to approach the children and their specific life histories. Together with her family she is embedded in the community of the SOS Children's Village; there she finds support and personal backing, while at the same time contributing to the village community herself. The SOS mother guides the children's developmental process, and, in doing so, works together with the village director and the other co-workers in the village. Because of the demands that come with her profession she is always walking a tightrope between private and professional life, between family life and the organisation, always trying to keep her balance. The SOS mother is paid a salary, she is given a family budget depending on the size of her family and runs her household independently. She is assisted by a family assistant, called an "SOS aunt" in many countries. Women who decide to take up the profession of an SOS mother are carefully selected and trained. Who becomes an SOS mother? In general, SOS Children's Villages looks for single women aged 25 to 40 who have completed at least eight to ten years of school education. The ability to take stress, mental stability, the ability to build up relationships as well as educational skills are as necessary as is knowledge in the field of housekeeping and the readiness to commit oneself to this profession and raise at least one generation of children in an SOS family. A particular strength of the SOS Children's Village is the fact that every country employs local people. This is of course also true for the SOS mother. In some European countries there are also married women or couples working as SOS mothers. Professionalisation Right from the start had a vision concerning the role of the SOS mother. It was to become a profession of its own: "We must make the profession of an SOS Children's Village mother attractive, both on the intellectual and the spiritual level. To do so, we must create a new profession for women, like the professions of nurse or social worker." In 1978 the first international standards concerning selection, training and support networks for the SOS mothers were laid down. These are put into practice by the national SOS Children's Village associations and are continually being updated. These standards assure that the organisation takes on its responsibility of providing the necessary framework conditions in which the SOS mother can best fulfil her tasks. Training and further training of SOS mothers depends on the cultural, social and economic circumstances in each region, and varies accordingly. The spectrum ranges from regional and national training centres to programmes organised in the SOS Children's Villages or in co-operation with other organisations. However it is organised, every SOS mother trainee completes two years of basic training. This is made up of at least three months of theoretical and twenty-one months of practical training - called on-the-job training. During the theoretical part, the women are taught a wide variety of subjects covering the range of tasks of an SOS mother (educational and psychological subjects, housekeeping, nutritional science, creative methods, etc.). The qualified trainers add on to the women's previous experiences in life and learning, thus enabling them to develop further their personal as well as their professional skills. One of the standards in SOS-Kinderdorf International's personnel handbook states, "The SOS mother profession is continuously developed further". The SOS mother is offered a high standard of training as well as support and further training. The aim is that she develops further her personal and professional skills, thus ensuring best possible care to her children and youths. Additional support Apart from the regular meetings with her superior, the village director, the SOS mother can also take advantage of other professional offers, whenever need be. These include learning aids or leisure time activities organised by the educational co-workers, therapy sessions for the children or psychological counselling for herself. The village community is a network in which the SOS mother finds support and dialogue. When an SOS mother's working life nears its end, she can prepare for her retirement by having individual sessions or specialised seminars with other SOS mothers facing the same change in life. Furthermore, the organisation is committed to giving women who worked as an SOS mother for at least fifteen years and who have reached retirement age a monthly pension and a permanent residence, as well as to covering medical costs until the end of their lives.