Too little space in crisis shelter for minors in our province

“It’s not like we don’t want to, we just don’t have room for that girl”, the employees of the Crisis Hotline for minors have already had to pronounce this sentence 168 times this year. Aid workers call here, because a child or young person urgently needs help, and may need to get away from home for a while. The hotline is the last safety net, but more and more often they have to say that they can’t find shelter either.

Hermine Callewaert, Crisis hotline for minors: “A concrete case is, for example, a minor who is registered in an unsafe home, due to neglect or violence. He or she has to be removed from his home for a while, but we have to deliver bad news every day. And that weighs heavily. because we have a responsibility to accommodate that child.”

Number of registrations increasing

The number of registrations is also rising sharply. This year the counter is already at 2,038. Corona and the pressure of social media certainly play a role. There are more tensions in a family, young people feel insecure. The General Director of the Growing Agency was invited today to the reporting center in Bruges. He emphasizes the importance of prevention, and the role that schools and youth associations can play in detecting problems before they escalate.

Bruno Vanobbergen, Growing Up Agency: “It is an important social task to look for how we can ensure that young people and children who are not feeling well, that we can still offer them help and support.”

We need to organize youth support differently, he says. He doesn’t believe in just more resources.