She came* of age and wanted to keep her contact person - instead she got the worst imaginable message
When she turned 18, she lost the only adult in her life that she trusted.
18-year-old Louisa sat with her phone in her hand. She was nervous, because soon her world could topple.
A message had arrived in her e-Box from the Danish Appeals Board with a decision for which she had been waiting for six months.
She did not dare to read the message herself and therefore handed the phone to her friend.
- The Appeals Board assesses that your need for support is so extensive that it is not covered by an offer of aftercare, the friend read out from the decision.
It's a refusal, Louisa observed and was saddened.
It was the worst message imaginable. She had, on several occasions, tried to get aftercare. It is an offer that you can get as a person who has been placed, and which should help to make a smooth transition from child to adult.
And there was a lot at stake for Louisa. Because without youth support, she would now lose the apartment she had recently been placed in. But even worse, she would also lose a very important adult.
Namely the contact person Rikke, who had long been the only stable adult in her life.
That is why TV 2 does not carry surnames
TV 2 does not give Louisa's full name, as she appears as a minor in some of the recordings for the documentary 'The girls we lost'. In addition, consideration has also been given to parents and siblings.
The contact person Rikke has been anonymised due to his work with other young people.
TV 2 is familiar with both of their full names.
Grown up and on his own two feet
Although Louisa has only just come of age, she has more experience with the system than most other young people. In fact, she has been in contact with the social system since she was just two years old.
And she was placed outside the home as an 11-year-old.
When you are placed as a child and turn 18, the placement basically stops and you have to stand on your own two feet.
But for many of the young people, the transition to adulthood is unmanageable.
And this is where the municipal after-care service – which changed its name to youth support in January – comes into the picture. It was that offer that Louisa fought to get.
Because she was convinced that only that solution would be able to maintain her positive development with education and housing.
Louisa stars in 'The Girls We Lost', which is about the transition from being a foster child to coming of age. Photo: Vanessa Joy Hobbs / TV 2
'The Girls We Lost'
TV 2 Echo has followed Louisa since she receives her second refusal and decides to apply for youth support for the third time.
In 'Pigerne vi tabte' you also follow Ronja and Annesofie through the decisive period in their lives, when they officially move from child to adult.
What all three of them have in common is that their 18th birthday was not just a day of celebration. All three of them have been placed and depended on the fact that a case manager assessed that they were suitable for the help to continue into adulthood.
- It was doomed to disaster
When Louisa was placed, she was not given a firm, secure base. On the contrary, she lived in several different residences, residences and for a period also in a foster family in the following years.
In fact, she can count six different places she has lived in her placement.
- There have been many changes. I feel like I've been living in my suitcases and cardboard boxes since I was 11, she says.
Louisa has experienced many changes in connection with being placed outside the home. Photo: Private photo
At 14, she was sent home to her mother.
- It was doomed to be a disaster, and that's what it ended up being, Louisa recalls.
Her parents were divorced, and neither the mother nor the father could have Louisa living at home, she remembers. She was therefore placed again - at the latest as a 16-year-old in her own home with the possibility of educational support.
Thus, she writes herself into a boring statistic. Because according to Vive – the National Research and Analysis Center for Welfare – 10 percent of children in foster care are placed four or more times during their childhood.
In Denmark, collapse in placements is not unusual
- 4 out of 10 placed children experience more than one placement
- 21 percent experience two placements
- 9 percent are placed three times
- 10 percent are placed four or more times during their childhood
Source: Rockwool Foundation and Vive
And it can have serious consequences when there is a breakdown in placements, and the children thus do not experience continuity and stability in relation to the adults they bond with, research from Vive and the Rockwool Foundation shows.
In addition to interrupted schooling, things go particularly wrong when the children experience a breakdown in social relationships – both with adult educators, contact persons and other children and young people.
Because when you are placed in so many places, research shows that it creates a fundamental distrust of adults and the system in the placed child. And they take that distrust with them into adulthood.
Fought for the safe and predictable
The many changes in Louisa's upbringing have also left their mark. And it didn't make it any better that she already had challenges before her placement.
It appears from an inspection of her files that she was diagnosed with attachment disorders and ADHD in kindergarten.
- My mother has always said that I have too much gunpowder up my ass. In any case, I have been aware that I was different since I was very small, says Louisa.
It also appears from her case papers that it was assessed early on that she needed structure and predictability and that she had difficulty with change.
Louisa has had many contacts throughout her life, and has been happiest for Rikke, whom she was assigned as a 16-year-old. Photo: Private photo
It was also assessed that it was important for her health, well-being and development that she be supported in a fixed and continuous framework.
But Louisa is a nimble girl. She has papers on that. Because in kindergarten she was tested and scored an iq of 125 – that is, well above average performance.
Therefore, Louisa could neither understand nor accept that the municipality did not want to maintain the fixed and continuous support that it had itself assessed that she needed.
Instead of youth support, the municipality offered a section 107 offer, which is temporary housing for "persons with significantly reduced physical or mental functioning".
But Louisa didn't see herself as that poorly functioning at all, and she also wanted a permanent home without the prospect of more shifts.
However, the biggest problem with not getting youth support was that she would lose her contact person Rikke – the only thing in her life that was safe and predictable.
Therefore, she took up the fight and complained a total of three times about the municipality's decision not to give her youth support.
What is youth support?
When the young people turn 18, the placement ends. Then they have to fend for themselves, unless they are offered youth support (formerly aftercare) by the municipality.
Youth support is an offer that should create fertile ground for a good transition to adulthood. This can, for example, be support for getting into education or employment or finding a place to live. Youth allowance can be granted until the young person reaches the age of 23.
Around half of previously housed young people receive youth support. A prerequisite for being granted the support is that there is a prospect of positive development during the period of youth support. It is especially young people who are doing relatively well and are less vulnerable than other previously housed people who get the offer. These are young people who are in education or employment and who do not have a psychiatric diagnosis.
Source: Vive – The National Research and Analysis Center for Welfare
Secure relationships are essential
As project manager at Vive, Katrine Iversen has dealt with youth support since 2020, and she believes that the system today can be inflexible in terms of meeting the needs of young people in the best way.
Among other things, because as a young person placed in care, you lose the consistent security people you have had – for example, the educators at the children's and youth home you have lived in, or the contact person with whom you have built up a trusting relationship.
She explains that research shows that relationships are absolutely crucial, and that it is important to remember that the young people are placed because their parents, for example, have had difficulty caring for them.
- Where it becomes a problem is when it becomes the paragraphs and the municipal coffers that determine who you can have in your life.
- And for the young people, it doesn't matter whether it is one or the other section that helps them, says Katrine Iversen, who at Vive deals with the topics of prevention, vulnerable people, placements, aftercare and detection.
Adult without network
Louisa is far from the only placed youth who did not receive youth support when she turned 18.
According to Vive, in the period 2010 to 2020 there were approximately 50,000 young people between the ages of 18 and 23 in the target group for youth support. About half of them received youth support, the other half did not.
Some of the latter move to the municipal adult area and get offers through that. Others are "let loose" without further support.
The problem with a lack of youth support can be that young people turn 18 without having a network, explains Katrine Iversen:
- After all, it is children and young people who have been removed from their homes because society thought that they could be looked after better. So when they are released into adulthood without support, it regularly happens that they return to the environment that the system had deemed unsuitable.
Trusting the system for once
The contact person Rikke came into Louisa's life when, as a 16-year-old, she was placed in her own apartment in a social pedagogic offer. She quickly became a decisive support in Louisa's everyday life, says Louisa.
She helped her get up in the morning and go to school, practical tasks and most importantly: present conversations and care.
For the first time, Louisa experienced meeting an adult who wanted her. She felt seen, heard and understood - and therefore she slowly let Rikke into her life and her feelings.
And it was something very special. Because Louisa has had many contacts over time who never managed to get that close to her.
- I have had two contact persons at almost all residences I have been to. That's 12 contact persons - only at places of stay and residence, Louisa quickly calculates.
- And then, of course, I've also had at school, just as I've had changing case managers.
Louisa therefore believed that the fact that she had even been able to build such a strong bond of trust with Rikke was in itself reason enough to give her youth support.
Norway does it completely differently
Katrine Iversen highlights our neighboring country Norway, which takes a completely different approach to the transition from child to adult.
In Norway, it was decided in 2009 that all previously placed young people are basically entitled to youth support - and they are until they turn 25.
If the case manager considers that the support must end at the age of 18, this must be justified based on the child's best interests.
This is contrary to the legislation in Denmark, where the case manager must argue for a grant of youth support in relation to a relatively loosely formulated target group description.
- Norwegian research shows that the most effective is still placement. But it is also the most expensive, says Katrine Iversen and adds:
- But impact studies have shown that young people do better in terms of education, employment, finances and health.
- The assessment process should be reconsidered
According to Katrine Iversen, an incredible amount of information has been collected in recent years about young people in care and youth support, and she believes that the entire assessment process needs to be rethought.
Among other things, she points out that there should be a greater focus on what the various offers can be of importance to the young person - especially in relation to which adult confidants the young person has and thus risks losing.
- These young people are placed because their parents have found it difficult to take care of them, which may have challenged the young people's ability and courage to create attachments to other adults.
Therefore, she points out that it can have a great impact on the young person's well-being if he or she loses their security person in the transition from child to adult.
- That part should have more focus, says Katrine Iversen and emphasizes that from research we know that long-term relationships can be completely decisive for the young person's well-being, development and positive future prospects.
Because there is no doubt that a good transition to adulthood with education, employment and a good network is of great importance to those previously placed.
They are more vulnerable than non-placed young people. This is shown by the statistics from Vive.
Placed people have it more difficult than non-placed people
Up to half of the previously housed young people have a psychiatric diagnosis, while it is 6 percent among other young people.
Several of them experience problems with self-harm and poor mental health, and 43 percent have drunk alcohol or taken drugs to escape their thoughts.
This applies to 20 percent of young people of the same age.
Mortality is also significantly affected. Children who have been placed are 4.5 times more likely to die in early adulthood than children who have not been placed.
Kilde: Vive – Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd
Distanced himself from care
Last August, the day came. Louisa and Rikke packed things in moving boxes and prepared for the movers.
Louisa was under pressure. Now it was all out of her hands. The race was over, and in a little while Rikke would disappear from her life, and a new and strange contact person would take over.
That is why Louisa had deliberately distanced herself emotionally from Rikke - even though deep down she didn't want to at all.
- This is how I take care of myself, Louisa explained and continues:
- I have to move on from Rikke, whether I want to or not. If I show emotion, it completely breaks for me.
Emotions were the last bit of control she had.
Even fewer support hours
Today it has gone as Louisa feared. It has been approximately eight months since her original support ended and the new one began.
In that time, she has changed her contact person once.
- I haven't met the new one yet. I've talked to him on the phone and he seemed really nice, but I haven't been able to get myself together to meet.
The municipality has adjusted Louisa's need for support hours from six to three hours a week.
She misses the caring messages and reminders from her old contact person, who made everyday life work.
Today she has dropped out of her 10th grade and works in a bar instead. She is convinced that she would have continued at school if she had received youth support and kept her original contact person.
Louisa is left with a feeling that she could have been in a completely different place in life if only she had gotten the help she so desperately wanted.
Louisa's parents are both informed that Louisa tells her story in the programs 'The girls we lost'.