Out-of-home placement can improve the well-being of children and parents

Child protection measures can help to improve the well-being of parents and their children. The violence also seems to stop more often, according to research.

Yara van BuurenOctober 28, 2022 , 9:36 AM

Every year in the Netherlands, more than 100,000 children are abused at home. The cause is often an accumulation of risk factors, which makes the approach particularly complex. If there are concerns about the safety and development of the child, a juvenile court may order that the minor be placed under the supervision of a family guardian. The child can also be removed from the home.

In recent decades, a great deal of research has been carried out into the functioning of youth protection. Yet little research has been done into the effectiveness of these far-reaching interventions. The Verwey-Jonker Institute has a study on Thursday showing that child protection measures help to improve the family situation.

For the study, more than 1300 families were followed for a year and a half in which there is evidence of child abuse. A supervision order and/or custodial placement was imposed on 480 families. Compared to families that have no involvement from youth protection, a clear improvement can be seen in the well-being of the children. Bonding with parents improves, emotional safety increases and trauma complaints decrease sharply.

Cautiously positive

Nevertheless, Majone Steketee, professor by special appointment of Orthopedagogy at Erasmus University and researcher at the Verwey-Jonker Institute, is only cautiously positive about the results of her research. One and a half years after the measure was imposed, child abuse is still occurring in half of the families. There is little difference in the decrease in violence between families with or without a measure. “You see that violence often flares up again. That also shows how chronic and difficult this problem is,” explains Steketee.

However, the chance that the violence will actually stop is greater in families where youth protection has actively intervened. There, in about 1 in 3 families, child abuse will eventually no longer occur. In families without child protection measures, child abuse stops in less than a quarter of the cases. In addition, parents appear to be better able to raise their children after the intervention.

The optimistic sounds are striking at a time when there is a lot of criticism of youth protection. Last year, the inspectorates noted that vulnerable children in the youth protection chain are insufficiently protected, partly due to the long waiting lists in youth care. They are also concerned that the out-of-home placement of children is often careless. In many cases, the fact-finding investigation prior to the custodial placement is not in order.

Children do not always receive the right care

Steketee emphasizes that it has not investigated whether a custodial placement was lawfully established. She also sees that children do not always receive the right care because of the long waiting lists. Parents whose child is placed under supervision or removed from home hope to receive help more quickly. In practice this often turns out not to be the case and this leads to a lot of disappointment.

In addition, the research shows that parents hardly receive any help aimed at their own problems, such as problematic alcohol or substance use. According to Steketee, this is a missed opportunity: “Domestic violence decreases faster if attention is paid to both the parents and the child.”

Imposing measures therefore works best in combination with specialized help aimed at child abuse. Still, according to Steketee, the research shows that youth protection really matters: "There are clear improvements visible in the families, despite the conclusion that we still have a long way to go."

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