Struggles in Caring for Autistic Nele: Parents Resigning from Police Department
In the heart of Moers, Germany, a family is on a mission to find reliable, caring, and patient caregivers for their daughter, Nele. Nele, who lives just a stone's throw away from her family, is a vibrant individual with autism, who enjoys her weekly physiotherapy sessions, dance classes, cooking classes, and group meetings, all provided by local organisations such as Lebenshilfe and Caritas.
Nele's parents take care of her during the afternoons and weekends, but they are seeking additional support to ensure a more balanced life for their daughter and peace of mind for themselves. To help Nele manage her days, the family has come up with a unique solution - an advent-calendar style system, with one envelope for each day.
However, finding suitable caregivers in Moers has proven challenging. The family is hoping to find responsible, loving women who can understand Nele's unique needs, as her lack of boundaries and inability to assess danger necessitates female caregivers.
The search for caregivers is taking place against a broader backdrop. Across Germany and worldwide, workforce shortages for direct support professionals in care for people with autism and intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) are a recognized problem. Solutions often involve workforce initiatives, policy reforms, and organisational strategies.
In Germany, psychological burdens on social work professionals have been critically analysed, suggesting systemic challenges affecting workforce capacity and retention. Policy and legislative reforms, such as updates to the Mental Health Bill 2025 in the UK, aim to improve community resources and reduce inappropriate detention of autistic individuals, indirectly addressing staffing and care quality.
Elsewhere, models for addressing these shortages include recruitment and training initiatives, collaborative funding networks, and organisational infrastructure to ensure adequate staffing for autistic people’s care. For instance, policy entrepreneurs in Israel have created organisational infrastructure and leveraged institutional trust to integrate autistic individuals into systems such as the military to address personnel shortages.
As the family in Moers continues their search for the right caregiver for Nele, they hope that these broader strategies will soon find their way to their community, ensuring that Nele, and others like her, can live a life with as much normality and dignity as possible.
- To address the challenges in finding suitable caregivers for Nele, Moers' family is investigating targeted strategies often implemented for direct support professionals, such as workforce initiatives, policy reforms, and organizational changes, which could include recruitment and training programs, collaborative funding networks, and infrastructure to ensure adequate staffing for family-health and individuals with IDD like Nele.
- Recognizing the global shortage of caregivers for people with autism, the family also looks for responsible, loving women who understand mental-health and can meet Nele's unique needs, as her circumstances necessitate female caregivers, with the ability to provide health-and-wellness care and support that complements her physiotherapy sessions, dance classes, cooking classes, and group meetings.
- The day-to-day care of Nele, through an advent-calendar style system, is currently managed by her family, but they are eager to find additional support to achieve a more balanced life for Nele and her family, with the goal of improving her parenting experience by ensuring a safe, caring, and holistic environment for her growth and development.
