Children in danger. The Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, took up last week the “alarming situation of child protection in the North and the Somme”. For many months, educators, lawyers and even magistrates from these two departments have regularly sounded the alarm bells regarding the difficulties encountered by the child welfare services (ASE), formerly the DASS which depended on the State.
“The number of places to accommodate very young children, such as adolescents, is largely insufficient. The dangers multiply. The lack of professionals to support them is glaring”, underlines Claire Hédon, in a press release.
Seven hundred accommodation places removed
According to her, “the institutional responses to these needs are not up to the challenge and undermine the fundamental rights of children”. Last month, the social workers of the departmental council of the North, the union of the judiciary and that of the lawyers of France had signed a joint platform to denounce “the failures of the department of the North” in the protection of children and adolescents.
In this department, for example, 700 accommodation places were cut in 2015, in specialized establishments, in favor of host families, “for cost reasons”, had denounced, at the time, the Sud union .
Separated siblings
In an article, published in June, 20 minutes lined up the testimonies of professionals unhappy to see the ASE “unable to protect children with dignity”. It was a question of children tossed from one place of reception to another or of siblings separated, for lack of places, to the chagrin of the social workers who are struggling to try to find solutions adapted to each file.
“For two years, domestic violence has exploded and young children are more fragile psychologically. We can incriminate confinements, but not only. Still, requests for placement by the courts have increased by 10%, while the number of social workers is not increasing,” explains Olivier Treneul, former educator and South union representative in the North department.
“In recent years, several legislative texts have reformed child protection, however no national or local reflection has been thought about their application in the field”, deplores the Defender of Rights, whose automatic referral “will make it possible to draw up a precise inventory and make recommendations”.