An important moment for the Via Jeugd youth institution in Cadier en Keer: the meter-high fences around the institution have been removed. The last fence was symbolically removed on Friday.
The fences were still there from the time when it was a juvenile detention center. Popularly, the juvenile detention center was called Het Keerpunt. In 2020, Het Keerpunt closed permanently.
Open
For several years now, it has been mainly young people who are under the administration of Youth CarePlus that have resided in the institution. JeugdzorgPlus offers an intensive form of youth care.
They have not been criminally convicted and therefore do not have to be imprisoned.
Hotel rooms
The fences around the building provided a figurative and literal closure from the outside world. Something that is at odds with the institution’s policy. Openness is important to director-director Harm Wijgergangs of Via Youth. He is glad that the fence has been removed.
“This is a signal to us that we are really going to do things differently,” says Wijgergangs. “We have an immense building that is still furnished as a juvenile detention center. It is a building with long corridors with cell doors and which are being converted into a kind of hotel rooms.”
Unwind
The renovated building should create a feeling among young people that it is a place where they can relax. Through treatment, the youth gains perspective in life.