According to the much-discussed report of the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ), the out-of-home placement of children is generally insufficiently substantiated. Of the 45 files examined, not one of them had the facts carefully established. Although it is emphasized that the work is done by highly committed professionals, who are committed to the best of their ability for the healthy and safe development of children.
But there is more that needs our attention. After all, the debate about custodial placements is not only about whether files are sufficiently legally substantiated or about the way in which communication is made to parents. It’s also about the way we place out of home. And how a child placed out of home is cared for in foster care or institutional care. Does the child have sufficient rights and participation? Doesn’t the child get further traumatized unnecessarily?
One of the rights of children who have been placed in an out-of-home placement that requires attention in the Netherlands is the right to stay together with brothers and sisters in the event of an out-of-home placement. In France and Spain this right has been legally guaranteed for much longer. Belgium and Scotland last year arranged that siblings must stay together unless it is not in their best interests, for example if there is violence between siblings.
45 percent
Thousands of children end up in a foster family or institution every year. Brothers and sisters from one family are separated in at least a quarter of the cases, in the case of emergency home placements this is almost 45 percent. The more siblings, the more likely they are to be separated and lose contact. Often for practical reasons, such as a lack of reception places. Even if it is actually clear that children are extra traumatized and damaged as a result. This while the children are attached to each other and have support from each other in a difficult time. When home is gone, siblings are your anchor. Even if they do get in touch again later, the bond you have when you grow up together is missing.
The result: sadness that you carry with you for the rest of your life. It happened to Ravi Debisarun (33), who was removed from home at the age of 6 and grew up largely separated from his brother and two sisters. He told his story in the story collection Growing up together is a right from SOS Children’s Villages† First a difficult situation at home, then, very suddenly without anyone telling the children anything, being kicked out of the house. Great ambiguity and structural unpredictability. On top of that, being separated from your brother and sisters. The only support in a traumatic period.
Motion
Last Tuesday, together with SOS Children’s Villages and Defense for Children, he presented the collection of stories, together with a petition that legally guarantees that brothers and sisters who have been removed from their homes are placed together from now on. The reason for the offer is the motion by Lisa Westerveld (GroenLinks) and Michiel van Nispen (SP) that the House of Representatives passed almost unanimously on 31 May. With this, the House requests the cabinet to legislate that in the case of out-of-home placements of brothers and sisters, the starting point is ‘together, unless’.
Often – not always – the youth care sector reacts quite defensively when it comes to criticism. The debate is ‘polarised’. People do their best, but are unable to get things under control: due to staff shortages and turnover, complicated organisation, bureaucracy, cutbacks. Better than this is difficult, seems the quick conclusion.
commendable
That is why the initiative of SOS Children’s Villages is commendable. Other hot topics are also discussed in the bundle, such as placing children back with their parents or contact with parents during an out-of-home placement. The stories in the collection thus provide a broader picture of what can be improved in youth care. The vital importance of reacting with empathy when there are problems in a family and with an attitude of trust that parents can contribute to changing their situation is emphasized. Candid conversations with youth protectors, family house parents, family lawyers, parents, children, professors, foster parents indicate the dilemmas from different perspectives.
We must continue to talk to each other to improve care for vulnerable children. The necessary conversation to arrive at more loving, more effective youth protection will continue to grind. But it is about structural improvement of the approach, system and legal protection. This is in the interest of children and vulnerable families, but emphatically also in the interest of professionals.
Harriet Durvoort is a publicist. She writes an exchange column with Danka Stuijver every other week.