‘Children’s out-of-home placements may no longer be tacitly extended’ | Domestic

The sore point is the so-called notification letter, which can be sent for annual extensions of out-of-home placements of children. Parents who receive such a letter read that they must indicate themselves if they want the court to consider the extension of a child protection measure during a hearing. Families who receive compulsory assistance through a supervision order can also receive such a notification letter. Parents who do not receive, do not read or do not understand this letter may miss the opportunity to contest the extension.

There are no exact figures that say how often out-of-home placements are extended without a court hearing. Youth law lawyer Reinier Feiner believes that there are thousands of cases involved. Cases in which, he believes, the judiciary ‘knowingly breaks the law’ by deciding on drastic measures without parental involvement.

Feiner, who in addition to being a lawyer is also chairman of the Dutch Social Advocacy Association, now wants to enforce change with a trial process. “The point is that you are dealing with vulnerable parents. Some have debts and are under administration. Not everyone opens the mail, not everyone is literate. For others the correct address is not known at all. Yet the judiciary continues to send these letters. Sometimes by registered mail, but sometimes also by regular mail, so it is unknown whether they will arrive.”

The notification letter is also controversial within the judiciary. Children’s judge in the Northern Netherlands Bart Tromp, also a lecturer and researcher at the University of Groningen, recently published the reporting letter in a legal journal. In his publications he states that this is an extralegal procedure. Tromp also made a comparison with the regulations on extending a trial subscription to Donald Duck. This cannot be tacitly extended, but an out-of-home placement can. Silent, because the judge has not spoken to the child and parents.

But that is all far too simplistic, says juvenile judge Susanne Tempel from Breda, who emphasizes that the notification letter is only sent if youth care says that parents agree to an extension. “I feel insulted when it is said that this is a tacit extension. Even if there is no hearing, I assess whether an out-of-home placement or supervision order needs to be extended. This can also be done using files. I also check whether parents indeed agree and whether the letter has been sent to the correct address. If that is not the case, there will still be a hearing. But sometimes a hearing is not necessary.”

Tempel also points out the tensions that a hearing can cause for parents and that parents who have requested a hearing do not always show up. “That is a waste of scheduled court time, while judges are already so busy.” But at the same time, family judges came to the conclusion last year that the notification letter may need to be overhauled, when they examined their own performance and it turned out that the legal protection of parents dealing with youth care is inadequate. “A request for funding is currently being submitted to the ministry to implement the first recommendations,” says Tempel. It concerns 9 million euros.

According to Tempel, about 12,000 requests for extensions of supervision orders and out-of-home placements were processed in the Netherlands last year, 27 percent (about 3,200) of which were settled outside a hearing, she says. “Not in all cases was this because there was no response to a reporting letter.”

If the procedure ultimately changes, it will be necessary to consider how the extra number of hearings will be accommodated, Tempel emphasizes. The Council for the Judiciary emphasizes that although the notification letter is not regulated by law, it is made possible by the so-called procedural rules of the courts. Remarkable: at the same time, the court in Groningen no longer works with notification letters, Assen and Leeuwarden will soon follow, the court in Northern Netherlands said, ‘because they have no legal basis’.

Lawyer Feiner doesn’t care about any of that. He’s tired of waiting. It remains to be seen how he can force change among judges. But thanks to a foundation, established in the name of a deceased journalist who writes about youth care, a trial process can be financed. “Especially now that waiting lists in youth care are increasing and it sometimes takes a year before assistance to a family is started, it must be extra critically assessed whether it is still possible to extend measures in this way.”