Honorary members - Justice & family law supervision Swiss

Honorary members gallery

Dr. Stefan Rücker GmbH, Dipl.-Psych.

Specializations: Clinical child psychology, mediation, assessments, child welfare
Conducts nationwide studies, including on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs (child welfare and access rights); Kid-I (children in custody) and many more.
Dr. Stefan Rücker has been the link between research and practice for around 20 years. On the one hand, he works as a researcher, on the other he offers advice in his own practice. His focus is on the protection of children in the context of separation and divorce. He advises separating parents with underage children on the question of the conditions under which separations can be structured in the best interests of the child and which care model is most likely to be recommended in each individual case.

Prof. Dr. Jur. Hildegund Sünderhauf-Kravets.

The Council of Europe has recommended the alternating model following the separation of parents. Since then, there has been a nationwide debate on how parents can best fulfill their parenting responsibilities. Prof. Dr. Hildegund Sünderhauf has researched the alternating model from a psychological and legal perspective.

Vonne Diewald

About the author
Yvonne Diewald is one of the leading transformation experts and neuro coaches in Germany. She worked for many years in a DAX company as a strategic advisor to the board members and managing directors and individually developed 1,300 top managers.

Angie Stone-Müller

Angie is a mother, entrepreneur and writer. In her book “Angie Stones – David versus Goliath”, she tells her personal story full of courage, faith and commitment to justice. Her heartfelt desire is to give hope and strength to others who have been affected.

Curriculum vitae Kurt W. Gäggeler

(in brackets events that were told to me)
The first year of life in Bern was almost normal (comminuted fracture of the nose in the playpen without medical clarification).
I lived in a block of 6 apartments on the second floor. My father worked for the city of Bern's building department and was absent all day.
My mother didn't seem to have much need to see me, so as soon as I was able to leave, I went "ringing" in the house and invited myself to dinner.
In the spring of 1955, I moved away from Bern to visit friends from my father's youth.
Once a year, Miss Neeser from the official guardianship office in Berne, who was my guardian Ernst Schürch's official receptionist, came to see if the boy had a bed, enough to eat and to check his school performance. The guardian himself couldn't take care of that - no wonder with around a thousand wards!!!, what he pedantically and meticulously monitored was the flow of money.

Now two three key experiences from 1955 to 1967. So that the other pupils wouldn't be offended, I was called Kurt Müller at elementary school - the surname of the foster family; then I transferred to secondary school and the then municipal clerk Paul Spring - an extremely "correct" and devout man - decided that I had to be adopted or else bear the legal surname Gäggeler; I opted for the latter, when he told me in front of the foster parents that it was not for me to decide, and I left the kitchen saying that I knew very well where the Schwarzwasserbrücke was. Unfortunately, I was never able to find the official notification he sent to my guardian about this episode. In the eighth grade, discussions began about what profession I would or should learn. My wish was to be a cook, the guardian ordered KV, at least I was able to assert myself at the various apprenticeships. As a country bumpkin in the truest sense of the word, I now came to the big city of Bern, where I went about three times during my school years - always accompanied. This freedom was almost too much for me and things happened that wouldn't have happened to so-called normal young people, not least because they naturally knew a lot more about "life". Well, I actually survived these relatively wild and eventful years unscathed and after my apprenticeship I joined the RS in Kloten with friends. As a November child, I only turned 20 and thus came of age after the RS.
In 1996, my biological father died at the age of 55 after a long period of suffering. It was a bitter loss for me, despite the few contacts I had.
My guardian called me in one last time, gave me a savings book with a balance of CHF 8.70 and told me, among other things, that I still had a half-sister on my mother's side who didn't want to know anything about me. I took note of this and turned my attention to the life I enjoyed. I met my future wife and got married at the age of 22 - the marriage lasted until then and I am proud of that because I knew what it meant to be a child of divorce! My professional and family life began with the constant desire to improve myself and, as they say, to work my way up. Influenced by my youth, I was always open and direct, which was not always conducive to my career. However, I am satisfied so far and was happy to look in the mirror in the morning until the end.
When I was 60 years old, I became more and more interested in details about my roots and I began to search - a grueling task with many "low blows" - I had to realize that various people had played me badly as a "Verdingbub"; a few examples are mentioned here:
The "adoption scene" - the choice of profession - the theft of money - my father had actually bequeathed me around 16,000 francs - the record of the start of the KV apprenticeship says, he is pale and weak although I regularly swung and did farm work - the lie that the half-sister didn't want to know anything about me was also exposed when the biological mother died - the whole thing is actually a never-ending story that is incomprehensible to outsiders, what society thinks of such events could be read and heard at the latest with the reparation initiative.
In spite of everything, my resentment has become very small - I have used much of my energy since retiring to ensure that this evil history is finally dealt with properly, that a contemporary document is produced similar to the "Berchier Report" and, even more importantly, that this arbitrariness and in some cases deliberate denigration is curbed. The liars of the Verdingkinder must be put on the same level as the Holocaust liars; anyone who denies "our" history today must be able to be charged as an official offense.
My family always got on well with my foster parents - the foster father died in 1995 and the foster mother in 2015. They were really good grandparents to our sons.

Conclusion:

The first three years were somehow very formative for my character, as well as the terrible scene with the municipal clerk regarding adoption; for many years there was only black and white for me, or in other words good/bad - right/wrong. That didn't make my life any easier until I was about 60, when I became increasingly able to "agree".
My greatest success is and was that my lovely wife and I managed to ensure that the family never fell apart, despite some big "chunks", including financially.