Careless out-of-home placements: ‘Not one file examined in order’ | Inland

Last year there were 3301 new custodial placements. The Inspectorate now concludes that there is no verbal and written substantiation showing why it is necessary to take such a measure. After looking at 45 files, none of them turned out to be completely in order. “The fact-finding investigation that precedes a forced out-of-home placement of a child is not always and not carefully enough in all respects,” the Inspectorate said in a statement. report that came out today.

Children are also insufficiently involved in an out-of-home placement. This must be improved: a family must be involved in the consideration and feel taken seriously and understood. Now in half of the cases this is not the case. Parents and children experience decision-making regarding out-of-home placement as a ‘black box† They feel that ‘insufficient listening has been given and insufficient time has been taken to get to know them.’ That while researchers from the Council for Child Protection and youth protectors believe that they listen carefully to the expectations and wishes of children and parents.

Parents who object to an out-of-home placement are also left empty-handed. There is a lack of help to lodge an objection and there are hardly any appeals. For example, critics of youth care – including parents – are once again applauded for saying that the system is not in order. This is painful, because the inspectorate itself also concludes that this is a sensitive and far-reaching subject. ‘The report is about situations full of suffering and sadness. About children and young people who are forced to live elsewhere. No longer with their mother, father, or both.’

The Inspectorate therefore believes that improvements must be made. In the first place, by offering professionals sufficient opportunities and time to get to know a family well and to involve parents and children in decision-making. The decision to proceed with an out-of-home placement should also be better explained orally and in writing, and legal protection for parents and children should be put in order. If an out-of-home placement does eventually take place, contact with the biological parents must be maintained as much as possible.

Until now, the latter has not happened in all cases. Recently, a directive has been discarded that ensured that especially young children and their biological parents were cut off from each other. According to the guideline, after six months to a year, children are too attached elsewhere, so that the so-called ‘parenting perspective’ came to be there. Professor Mariëlle Bruning called it ‘perhaps the most poignant part of the crisis that is now unfolding in youth care’. Youth care is struggling, among other things, with staff shortages.

But the Inspectorate also sees that this crisis and the complicated system that has arisen make improvements more difficult. The mounting waiting lists should be resolved urgently, as waiting for help often exacerbates problems. But recently a director of Partners for Youth also concluded that there are ‘few concrete measures’ to achieve this.

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