Differentiation in Flemish Special Youth Care Making the difference in private and public facilities

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Differentiation in Flemish Special Youth
CareMaking the difference in private and public
facilities

• Implementation of Juvenile Justice
• Socioeducational aspect
• 24-25 november 2011
• Vilnius, Lithuania

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Presentation structure

• Part I Youth Welfare Agency
• Part II Flemish Special Youth Assistance
• Part III Flemish approach towards youth
  delinquency
• Part IV Making the difference in Flemish private
  facilities
• Part V Making the difference in Flemish public
  facilities
• Part VI Questions

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PART I
Youth Welfare Agency
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Welfare, Public Health and family Policy Area
Minister of Welfare, Public Health and Family

• Integral Youth Care

Strategic Advising Committee For Welfare, Public
Health and Family
Policy Council
Management Committee
Flemish Ministry of Welfare, Public Health and
Family
Inspectorate for W, PH F
Depart-ment of W, PH F
Child and Family
Flemish Agency f. People w. Dis-abilities
Public Psychiat-ric Care Centre Rekem
Public Psychiat-ric Care Centre Geel
Flemish Agency for Care and Health
Youth Welfare
Youth Welfare Fund
Flemish Care Fund
VIPA
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Youth Welfare Agency

• Set up April 2006
• Project a Better Administrative Government
• Autonomy within boundaries of a management
  contract with the Flemish minister of Welfare,
  Public Health and Family
• 1.200 members of staff
• Yearly budget 300.000.000 euro (excl. cost of
  the own staff)

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Youth Welfare Agency

• Mission statement
• We want to organise, together with our partners,
  prevention and assistance of a high quality for
  children and youngsters in problematic social
  circumstances in order to maximise their scope to
  develop

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Youth Welfare Agency

• Main tasks
• Conducting a general prevention policy
• Individual applications for help must be
  prevented by eliminating situations that have a
  negative influence on the development chances of
  youngsters
• Organising individual assistance for under aged
  persons in a problematic educational situation
• The aim of the aid is always enhancing
  self-reliance and social integration
• The aid must be effective and efficient, and is
  customer-oriented and quality-oriented

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Youth Welfare Agency

• Structure

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PART II
Flemish Special Youth Assistance
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Flemish Special Youth Assistance

• Special youth assistance can only be accessed by
  referral and is divided in
• Voluntary aid
• Organising voluntary services and aid for the
  benefit of parents and children in a problematic
  educational situation

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Flemish Special Youth Assistance

• Special youth assistance can only be accessed by
  referral and is divided in
• Coercive aid
• Legal youth assistance in a problematic
  educational situation
• Assignment and implementation of coercive
  pedagogic measures in problematic educational
  situations
• Legal youth assistance in a fact defined to be a
  crime
• Coercive pedagogic measures for youngsters who
  committed a fact defined to be a crime

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Flemish Special Youth Assistance

• Principles
• Methodical action plan and evaluation
• Working towards indepence, self reliance,
  emancipation
• Directed towards family rather than individuals
• Quality, efficiency and effectiveness

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Flemish Special Youth Assistance

• Principles
• Principle of subsidiarity
• When the effect remains the same, the least
  dramatic measure must be preferred
• Before admission in a residential facility is
  carried out, all other forms of support must have
  been used or seriously considered. Putting
  minors in an institution must remain an
  exceptional situation
• Supporting families must be preferred over
  substituting families

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Flemish Special Youth Assistance

• Facilities for admission/counselling
• Public facilities
• Private facilities
• Projects

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Flemish Special Youth Assistance

• Private facilities
• Counselling institutions
• Family institutions
• Admission, orientation and observation centres
• Daycare centres
• Home counselling services

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Flemish Special Youth Assistance

• Private facilities
• Counselling services for persons who live
  independently
• Services for foster care
• Families first services
• Restorative justice services
• Multifunctional centres

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Flemish Special Youth Assistance

• Private facilities
• No distinction between problematic educational
  situations and delinquency
• Challenges
• Flexibility
• Deregulation
• Responsibility (financial, methodical, quality
  care)

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Flemish Special Youth Assistance

• Facts and figures
• 24.422 minors helped in 2009, excluding
  restorative justice

Delinquency Education Voluntary Coercive Male Female
2008 3040 20971 12935 10415
12 86 48 52 55 45
2009 3520 21760 13540 10882
14 84 45 55 55 45
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PART III

• Flemish approach towards youth delinquency

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Flemish approach towards youth delinquency

• Legislation
• Federal law of 8 April1965
• Fundamental changes in 2006 re-education and
  restoration
• Cooperation agreement between federal state and
  communities

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Flemish approach towards youth delinquency

• Principles
• Wide range of reactions to delinquency that can
  be cumulated
• Closed institutions
• Therapy
• Unique restorative justice is the first
  consideration for all delicts (obligation to
  justify)

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Flemish approach towards youth delinquency

• Exceptional measure
• When reactions in the act do not suffice, i.e.
• When youth judge decides that re-education is not
  possible
• From delinquents perspective, not the
  seriousness of the fact
• Referral to adult court
• Ca. 20 minors pa

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PART IV

• Making the difference in Flemish private
  facilities

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Making the difference in Flemish private
facilities

• Services for restorative justice
• 2000-2008 experimental period
• 2009 12 accredited services for restorative
  justice, covering the whole of Flanders
• Different processes
• Mediation
• Family group conferencing
• Community services
• Counselling

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Making the difference in Flemish private
facilities

• Services for restorative justice

  2008 2009
Mediation 4.384 4.050
Family group conferencing 682 737
Community services 753 836
Counselling 75 114
TOTAL 5.894 5.737
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Making the difference in Flemish private
facilities

• Youth at Risk
• American evidence-based programme
• Community-based
• Residential week, 9 month follow-up by trained
  voluntary coaches
• Corporate voluntarism

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Making the difference in Flemish private
facilities

• Youth at Risk
• Experimental implementation 3 provinces, 75
  minors
• Evaluation
• Police contacts
• School/work
• Stable context
• Challenges
• American input vs. autonomity of the project
• Gender factor

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Making the difference in Flemish private
facilities

• Gardens of trial
• 3 private secured facilities
• First serious offence or recidivism
• Both sexes, girls also severe educational
  problems
• Direct intake and transfers from public
  facilities
• Residential start, gradual swift of focus to
  family/context

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Making the difference in Flemish private
facilities

• Gardens of trial
• Accreditation specific funding
• Secured infrastructure
• More intensive counselling
• Specific programmes (Equip, MST, NPT, etc.)
• Evaluation (2011)
• Programme integrity
• Forensic apects
• Target group

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Making the difference in Flemish private
facilities

• Focus on cooperation between private and public
  facilities
• Additional funding for counselling institutions
• Transfer from public facilities
• Girls and boys 160 minors p.a.
• Appeal to responsibility
• Higher intensity
• Flexible approach
• Possible time out in public facilities
• Specific programmes

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PART V
Making the difference in Flemish public facilities
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Ambitions

• Adapt more flexibly to strengths, needs and
  susceptibilities of youth
• Amplify relevance/ (future) orientedness of aid
  programmes
• Stimulate motivation and proper responsibility
• Anticipate on difficulties/giving opportunities
  for a second chance
• Public multifunctional facility

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Principles

• Temporal and structural differentiation
• Temporal differentiation
• phasing in the living group
• phasing in the facility
• phasing in the sector as a whole
• detention as a starting point for an
  individualized trajectory

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Structural differentiation

• Based on gender
• Treatment models usually focus on boys
• Girls
• - higher levels of psychopathology
• - more often traumatized
• - less stable family situation
• - higher threshold(s) for development of
  antisocial behaviour
• - lower recidivism
• Focus treatment of girls on the effects of trauma
  and difficulties with attachment

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Structural differentiation

• Based on judicial qualification
• placing together youth in a problematic
  educational situation (PES) and youth who commit
  acts defined to be a crime (ADC) is rare
• confusing for the youngster
• UN Guidelines for the alternative care of
  children (A/HRC/11/L.13, 15 June 2009) and
  Childrens Rights Commissioners Office
• specificity of both groups (?)

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Separate trajectories for offenders

• PES and ADC are not reliable differentiating
  criteria
• legal basis of claim is utilized as a function of
  the supposed societal risk
• provisional character of judicial decisions
• gt Other criterion societal necessity for
  secure residential aid

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Separate trajectories for offenders

• Separate campuses for boys
• Separate living groups for girls

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Age-related trajectories

• 1 adolescent group per campus for ADC-boys from
  12 to 14 years old

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Exclusion criteria

• PES-youth under 14
• Pregnant girls (6th month of pregnancy or later)

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Specific programmes or modules

• Short-term orientation
• Time-out
• Observation
• Guidance
• Treatment

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Central admission management

• Regulation of intakes
• Information and registration desk for referrers
  on a central location
• Give support in seeking adequate aid
• Clear guidelines for making reservations,
  prioritising and excluding
• Special attention for time-out management

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Installation of a portal

• Intake and orientation centre
• Both PES and ADC
• Short-term orientation including risk taxation
  and criminogenesis
• Development of diagnostic expertise

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Added value of a portal

• better organisation of intakes overflow
• be on the ball
• transparent system for juvenile magistrates
• control over indication and internal allocation
• more homogenous groups and more room for longer
  lasting programmes

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Cross-institutional and intersectoral trajectories

• After care trajectories
• individualised residential trajectory
• flexible care, Youth at Risk (YAR)
• short-term, insistent guidance as differentiation
  of private home based family interventions
• New Perspectives upon Re-entry (NPT)

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Cross-institutional and intersectoral trajectories

• Trajectories for specific target groups
• specialised programmes for youth with complex
  problems
• mentally retarded youth with extreme behavioural
  and emotional disorders
• time-out protocols with facilities in other
  sectors readmission obligation
• orthopsychiatric unit

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Proposals for increased capacity

• time-out 6X10X12 720
• short-term orientation 8X10X12 960
• orthopsychiatric unit 26X2 26 ?52
• time-out VAPH and waiting for allocation 2X10X6
  120
• observation for boys ADC 2X10X6 120
• specialised programme 6X10X2 60 ?120
• guidance or treatment 17X10X2 340
• minimum 2346 youth on a yearly basis

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Part VI
Questions