The stricter supervision of youth protection in Brabant will be terminated, although the region still does not succeed in offering every child appropriate help. This is reported by the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate. Youth protection is struggling with structural problems and the stricter supervision does not contribute to a solution, according to the Inspectorate.
The Inspectorate has long seen that youth protection throughout the Netherlands is under pressure. According to the inspectorate, this is partly due to the way in which the youth protection system is organised, and the Brabant region cannot do much about this.
‘Severely under pressure’
Since 2019, the Inspectorate has established several times that the quality of youth protection is ‘under serious pressure’.
In the summer of 2021, the inspectorate saw that in four regions, including Brabant, vulnerable children with complicated problems still had to wait too long for the right help. The regions were then placed under stricter surveillance.
‘Important Steps’
In February of this year, the Brabant region had ‘taken important steps’, but still not every child received the right help. The stricter supervision was then extended by six months.
Now, after discussions with professionals and stakeholders, the Inspectorate concludes that the extra measures have not resulted in enough improvement in Brabant.
Crisis approach
Last week, the inspectorate asked the responsible minister and state secretary to immediately come up with a crisis approach. “The government is failing in its task to protect vulnerable children,” the inspectors said.
The problems are said to be the result of too little money and insufficient staff. Moreover, too little and too late specialist help would be deployed.