From video to faces

www.kummernetz.de: that’s the website founded by the deacon of Würzburg, UWE HOLSCHUH , at the end of 1996 with a simple web page and e-mail address. Now some fifty volunteers are providing their services as part of a platform of communication and advice for adults, teenagers and children in difficult situations.NETWORK OF TROUBLES. The data furnished by Holschuh on the activities of “Kummernetz” (literally: “network of troubles”) are extraordinary: 2000 visits to the site per day, 1200 requests for help, 4000 answers by the website’s team of volunteers per year. Kummernetz is not a website dedicated to the problems of Catholics alone: 32% of its users are Catholic, a further 32% Protestant, 13.8% agnostic, 4.6% members of other faiths, while the rest prefer not to disclose their confession. 80% of the users are women. Most of the users of the site are also young: 24% in the age group 13-17; 31% aged from 18 to 25; 23% from 26 to 35; 13% from 36 to 45; and 3% from 46 to 55. The main sectors of the action of the Kummernetz are various: surfers can help each other in chat; those who seek help can be given advice by specially trained volunteers; the site also contains pages offering information and advice for “self-therapy”; forums to discuss various problems also exist. A NAME AND A FACE. The consulters of Kummernetz are theologians, psychologists and members of various other professions. Those who offer advice and help are not faceless names: they are presented on the website with a photo, a presentation and their professional position. So visitors to the site can choose their interlocutor on the basis of this information. “At the present time some 50 online consulters and persons specialized in pastoral care via Internet are working for the website; they provide their services for between 2 and 4 hours per week”, explains Holschuh. “We would need roughly threefold the number of consulters to be able to respond properly to the demand, but many dioceses have limited funds and are reducing their personnel. Ecclesiastical advice centres or helplines are also being subjected to cutbacks and have difficulty in keeping their activities going”, he laments. As for the training of volunteers, Holschuh insists that “to ensure the quality of the advice given on the website, regional supervisory groups are essential”. Indeed volunteers are only recruited in those regions in which such supervisory groups exist. “A qualification subdivided by weekends of basic and advanced training and a 6-month tutoring course with a process of selection are also provided. The quality of our service has in this way been considerably improved and the fluctuation of our volunteers reduced to the minimum”. PASTORAL CARE BY E-MAIL. The most recurrent problems in requests for help concern the social sphere, personal relationships, family life, education and work. What are the advantages of Kummernetz? According to Holschuh, the pastoral workers and consulters involved enter into contact with large numbers of people. It’s a contact “easy to access just with the click of a mouse”. The pastoral care offered by e-mail is concise and to the point. Moreover, says Holschuh, “those in situations of crisis need serious and expert assistance and support. As shown by the developments of a pastoral ministry geared to the key events in life (birth, coming of age, marriage, illness, death, etc.), people are particularly open to existential questions during these critical phases. So, by proposing pastoral care via Internet, the Church is offering a product for which there is a very high demand”. The service also helps to re-create a positive image of a useful and caring Church, a Church in step with the times. That’s a particularly interesting advantage if one considers that Kummernetz enables the Church to reach the younger generations “in a satisfactory manner”. NOT A SUBSTITUTE. But there are also disadvantages. In fact, while it’s true that Kummernetz is now well known, other websites linked to the Church are still struggling, points out Holschuh, referring to data for access to other diocesan websites. Moreover, he admits, “the high demand gives rise to an excessive burden of work” for our volunteers. Third, he stresses, “pastoral care via Internet presupposes that those who seek advice are able to express themselves articulately and willing to reflect on their own life. That is at variance with the general tendency to ‘fast-food’. Some no longer know, or have never learnt, how to present their problems and to focus on them”: for this reason, the contact is sometimes broken off. The activity of Kummernetz does not pretend to substitute the work of “face to face” pastoral care: “We have no interest in entering into competition”, says Holschuh. “In my view, on-line communities cannot replace what a good parish is able to offer”. So, “in many cases, our consulters and pastoral workers encourage people to approach a local advice centre, self-help group, priest or therapist”.