In a letter to the House of Representatives, Children’s Ombudsman Margrite Kalverboer strongly criticizes the lifting of the stricter supervision of Youth Protection North (JBN). According to her, the JBN case is indicative of broader shortcomings in the supervision of youth care institutions.
The children’s ombudsman writes in her letter that the interests of children and parents should be given much more weight than is currently the case.
JBN was placed under increased supervision by the Healthcare and Youth Inspectorate and the Justice and Security Inspectorate in July last year. This happened after a sample of various institutions showed that JBN did not meet nineteen of the twenty tested standards. The Quality Mark Institute previously revoked a crucial certificate for JBN.
The children’s ombudsman received about ninety reports about JBN. The Youth Protection North reporting center also received dozens of reports of abuses.
JBN was given seven months by the inspections to implement improvements. Both inspections ruled at the beginning of this month that this had been partly successful, resulting in the enhanced supervision being terminated. JBN received the certificate back in September 2025.
At the same time, the inspections concluded that JBN is not there yet. According to the inspectorates, children and parents still have too little influence on plans, they experience too little participation, and meaningful contact with some of them is lacking.
There is also still a shortage of staff and a high turnover within the organization. According to the inspections, this makes the improvements at JBN vulnerable.
In her letter, Kalverboer calls it ‘incomprehensible’ that the enhanced supervision of a youth care institution is being terminated, while the children and their parents are not sufficiently involved in the care provided in a meaningful way.
The way in which the inspectorates assess such institutions is ‘insufficient’, because the experiences of children and parents are not given sufficient weight. The ombudsman says she is ‘very concerned’ about their position in those assessments.
The ombudsman’s criticism of the assessment by the inspectorates also applies to the assessment of the Quality Mark Institute, she writes in her letter. According to Kalverboer, this mainly focuses on technical standards, and not on the ultimate quality of the assistance.
‘The experiences of children and parents should be given a full place in the assessment of the quality of the functioning’ of these institutions. Only in this way can it be assessed whether the help provided actually has an effect and is appropriate, says Kalverboer.
‘Certainly in the case of government intervention in family life from an organization in a position of power, this is essential from a child and human rights perspective.’