According to De Groot, those complaints differ completely. “No permanent youth protector has been appointed, there is no response to recovery of recovery or e-mails, the action plan is not drawn up within the legal target time. It is a huge blow to parents, their complaints are again put down as untruths in this way.”
As a confidant, De Groot has direct contact with people who make reports. These are grandparents, foster parents, professionals from other healthcare institutions, teachers and the parents themselves. And especially with the latter group, she sees the consequences of mismanagement within JBN. “I speak to people who are totally through it, who need therapy, can no longer work. It makes me angry again. If it is said now that there is improvement, then they are just joking in my eyes.”
From conversations with former employees, De Groot concludes that the entire working culture within Youth Protection Noord is sick. “It is an unworkable situation. If the quality of such an organization does not suffice, you have to stop. Sometimes you only see what is possible if you pick up the plug somewhere, alternatives are always there.”
Anita de Rijke van Leefbaar Assen also does not understand why JBN can continue with the work. “The problems are much larger than we initially suspected.” The messages she receives today show no improvements within JBN. “People sometimes don’t know where their child is and families don’t feel that they are being listened to.”
A high workload, resulting in a staff shortage, was one of the causes of the problems within JBN. “I heard that new people have been hired, but we received signals from employees who were already sought salvation elsewhere after a few weeks,” says De Rijke.
“Sometimes I think we’ve seen the soil, but then you get a story that is even more poignant or sad than we could ever have expected. In our view, that is not how you deal with me. We continue to look at the situation with great attention and major worries,” says De Rijke.
De Groot adds. “You sometimes lose a bit of courage, but we just go on. Parents like to talk to us about JBN and we hope we can get something done.”