The Dutch child welfare inspectorate is intervening in two private organizations which look after children in crisis situations. Inspectors discovered that the children were not taken care of properly and that their safety could not be guaranteed.

The children, who are between 0 and 17 years old, are now being taken away from the organizations. In May and June inspectors paid surprise visits to a children's foundation in the southern town of Langenboom and Back to Basics in Hilversum, in the center of the Netherlands. The visits had been prompted by "alarming signals" received by the inspectorate. What exactly those signals were has not been made public.

The children that were being cared for were waiting for placement in a regular child care center. This should take no longer than a few months, but the children were under custody of the private organizations for much longer. Some children have been waiting for nearly two years.
The Dutch inspection service wants the private organizations to be investigated.

Scandals

Dutch child care organizations have been the topic of controversy for some time. In March, the head of a child care organization in the south of the Netherlands was fired after it was found he had been convicted of large-scale fraud in 2002.
Another head of the organization was suspended after being suspected of real-estate fraud concerning the sale of children's housing.

Jan Hop, who has investigated the child care sector for years, writes on a website dedicated to the topic that "The damage that is being done to a parent and their relationship to the child is often greater that the help these organizations can offer."
Arlette Heskes lost her 2-year-old to the authorities for reasons unknown to her. In her blog she describes: "After he was taken, they wouldn't tell me what he was used to, what his rhythm or his eating pattern was. He became ill on a regular basis. They denied a necessary investigation about his custody even though a respected therapist was willing to carry it out and had communicated this to the judge."

External link:

What does the Dutch Inspectorate for Youth Care do? (.pdf document, opens in Adobe Reader)