The criminal records of educators and host families will now be systematically checked before welcoming children in danger, announced Sunday the Secretary of State in charge of the file, Charlotte Caubel. This measure will apply on November 1, she said in an interview with the magazine “Zone Interdite” of M6, devoted to the failures of Childhood Social Assistance (ASE).
In this report, two journalists filmed their hiring as host families with a hidden camera without the slightest check by the ASE services on their background, or even on their identity. “This situation can no longer exist,” commented Charlotte Caubel.
Any professional in contact with a child, but also any volunteer in his entourage – for example the spouse of a family carer, or his children over the age of 13 – will have to be subject to such checks “regularly”, added the Secretary of State for Children.
300 people trained over three years
The M6 journalists returned to a home in Seine-Saint-Denis, where they had filmed the daily lives of teenagers left to fend for themselves. If the premises have been renovated, the young people still occupy their day by keeping watch for cannabis sellers in neighboring towns. Teenage girls housed in another home regularly prostitute themselves, and their educators, filmed with a hidden camera, confess their helplessness.
“Shocked” by these “dysfunctions”, Charlotte Caubel assured that several dozen people would be recruited to strengthen controls over these establishments, and that 300 people would be trained for three years to make controls more effective.
The report also shows the situation of teenagers who have dropped out of school and are suffering from mental disorders, placed by the ASE in sordid hotels where they spend all their days for months. The Taquet law has precisely planned to put an end to these situations, recalls the Secretary of State. A “time to adapt” is necessary, but “at the beginning of 2024 there will be no more children in social hotels in France”, she assured.