October 2022 – AETAS Children’s Foundation

With this blog entry we want to focus on a special, Munich-based enterprise and the foundation that arose from it: AETAS.

AETAS has been a funeral home with a very special approach for over 20 years. At AETAS funerals are treated and conducted with great sensitivity: bright, open rooms offer a safe and tranquil environment in which it is easy to say goodbye peacefully. The support of the AETAS team is a strong anchor in a difficult process, which helps to gather strength and find comfort in this difficult time. AETAS is special with their focus on a life-affirming feeling, which is expressed in one of its themes: “life culture”. AETAS also offers a wide range of events that are not only aimed at mourners and, amongst other topics, deal with death and farewells in a variety of ways. BUT AETAS is much more than a funeral home.

Over many years grew, from the daily contact with the bereaved, the need to do even more for the mourners in these extraordinary hard and straining situations. Further support should be offered especially for grieving and traumatized children and parents. This support is now offered by the AETAS Children’s Foundation. Since 2013, the non-profit trust foundation has been managed on a voluntary basis by founder Florian Rauch, with Tita Kern and Simon Finkeldei taking on the practical management of the foundation.

The AETAS Children’s Foundation has set itself the goal of caring for children and young people after a drastic, traumatic event. The foundation provides professional child crisis intervention and their work, which to date is unique in Germany, goes far beyond initial care. Their concept of early intervention (i.e., “Aufsuchende Psychosozial-Systemischen Notfallversorgung”, which translates approximately to “Visiting Psychosocial-Systemic Emergency Care”) is the basis of the trauma therapy work of the AETAS specialists. Children between the ages of 0 and 17 and their caregivers can take advantage of the offers of the AETAS Children’s Foundation. Acute counseling (shortly after the incident), regular counseling (up to 1 year after the incident) and group activities (such as climbing, creative weekends, festival of lights) are offered. The AETAS Children’s Foundation is unique in that it closes the gap between first aid (emergency care) and care that is necessary in the event of possible illness as a result of the trauma. The AETAS Children’s Foundation accompanies and counsels preventively if no “disease” has been diagnosed (yet) but a traumatic event has occurred. Moving Child has been supporting the ATEAS Children’s Foundation since 2021, among other things with the financial means for personnel, material costs, and private tuition.

“The funding from Moving Child has not only supported our work with the affected children and their relatives in a variety of ways, but in many ways made it possible in the first place due to the amount. With this help, we can meet a need for help that would otherwise go unaided.

The support provided by Moving Child is currently one of the most effective forms of support for the AETAS Children’s Foundation.”

– Annual Report 2021/22 of the AETAS Children’s Foundation