“It is with great pain in my heart that I have decided in mutual consultation with our minister Crevits to resign my mandate as general administrator of Growing Up”, Verhegge writes in an internal statement. “However, the tragic death of a child in childcare, which has affected me very strongly from day one, has led to an incredible storm for childcare. This storm has turned into a very personal attack on me as a senior officer of our agency.”
New reports about abuses in daycare centers in Oudenaarde and Keerbergen have caused a new wave of indignation in recent days. Within government circles, almost everyone agreed that the position of top woman Katrien Verhegge was untenable. After about 15 years at the top of Kind en Gezin and subsequently the Growing Up agency, Verhegge is now stepping down as a leading civil servant.
Katrien Verhegge was already under fire earlier this year during the Flemish parliamentary committee of inquiry into the quality of childcare.
LOOK. In the summer, the childcare research committee was already very hard in its recommendations for the top of the Growing Up agency and in particular for Katrien Verhegge.