Geel family foster care

Domain V · Systemic, relational, group & community · 1851 · Geel, Belgium

What it is

Geel family care is a service model and a community tradition, not a psychotherapy. People with long-term psychiatric illness, often with intellectual disability, live as paid guests in ordinary local households. Older English texts call them "boarders"; OPZ now says "client" or pleeggast. A…

Format

• There are no therapy sessions or session counts. The unit of work is a placement, which can last a few months or several decades. OPZ describes four forms of stay:
• Since spring 2011, care has been organised by target group (doelgroepenwerking): children and young people under 18, adults aged about 18–65, and older adults over 65. Each group has its own mobile team. OPZ planned to extend the catchment from Geel and the surrounding municipalities to the whole…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• History in brief. The practice grew out of the medieval pilgrimage to the shrine of St Dymphna, which involved a nine-day ritual (noveen). When the church was full, townspeople were asked to take pilgrims into their homes. Guests who stayed became part of the family, and hosting passed down through the generations. In 1851 the State Colony of Geel for free family care was founded, and the whole municipality was…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• hosts who never take a break.
• time-outs becoming the only way to manage strain. Working if the client returns to the same family.
• hosts waiting too long before calling. Working if most calls are early and are handled by advice or a visit.
• clients blaming themselves; repeated breakdowns, which call for reassessing the indication. Working if the next placement holds.
• the client staying in segregated activities by default. Working if the client attends with less support and names people they meet there.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.