article from Mobiel 3, june/july 2001

Dear readers

Feelings know no geographical boundaries

By: Rob van Pagée
publisher of Mobiel and member of the board of IFCO

You find before you an ordinary and, at the same time, extraordinary edition of Mobiel, magazine for foster care. Ordinary because just like every other edition it deals with working and living in foster care. It highlights the nice and the difficult moments, and how to deal with them. It’s about how foster care, through good cooperation among all people involved, can contribute to the lives of children and families who need the services of foster care. It is, at the same time, an extraordinary edition because this time it is issued both in Dutch and English.

This is being done especially because of the bi-annual international foster care conference (IFCO) which is being held in the Netherlands this summer. With this issue of Mobiel we would like to allow the foreign guests who travel to the Netherlands to visit the conference to take a look behind the scenes of our ‘ordinary’ foster care. The Magazine for Foster Care Mobiel is an independent magazine made by foster parents, foster care workers and other foster care experts. With the cooperation of regional foster care agencies this magazine finds its way into 80% of all foster homes in the Netherlands. It is how we exchange knowledge and experience every two months. Which is the same thing IFCO intends to do and will be doing in Veldhoven this year.
Feelings know no geographical boundaries. Children and families in the Netherlands who, due to circumstance, need the services of foster care and those families that offer foster care feel no differently about it than children and families who experience this in other parts of the world. Perhaps we express ourselves differently here than elsewhere, but basically it is just the same. That is what makes such exchanges so productive, attractive and... so ‘ordinary’.
Mobiel’s editors, board and -undoubtedly- its readers heartily welcome all visitors and hope that you will have a wonderful conference. And... that you will enjoy reading Mobiel as much as we have been doing for the last 25 years.