• Professionals denounce, in a common forum, "the failures of the North Department" in the protection of children.

  • The North, the most populated department in France, is also the most affected by requests for judicial placements.

  • For two years, the increase in intra-family violence and the psychological weakening of young children, linked to confinements, have increased requests for placement by the justice system by 10%.

They can't take it anymore.

The social workers of the departmental council of the North, the union of the judiciary and that of the lawyers of France signed, this Monday, a common platform to denounce "the shortcomings of the department of the North" in the protection of children and adolescents.

An unprecedented and weighty initiative, insofar as the North, the most populous department in France, is also one of the most affected by requests for judicial placements.

“For several years, the total number of children placed has remained stable around 10,000, explains Olivier Treneul, former educator and South union representative in the department.

But 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 increased by 10% to 11,000.

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"Tossed from place to place"

Result, “nearly a thousand children entrusted to the department by justice are, today, not protected”, can we read in this forum.

And the testimony of professionals is edifying: children left "in dangerous situations in the family home" or "tossed around from one place to another", "without knowing where they will be the same evening", but also "babies [ who] spend whole days waiting for a place of welcome in the arms of helpless and destitute professionals”.

For the signatories, this situation is above all the result of the departmental policy carried out between 2015 and 2019, with the elimination of 700 places in homes and 300 positions for field workers.

At the time, the department relied on prevention to reduce the number of placements. 

“Six months of waiting”

“Reinforced educational support remains a good idea, but it works poorly for lack of places and sufficient referent social workers, testifies Pierre Msika, judge for children and spokesperson for the magistrates’ union.

Some children sometimes wait six months and their situation deteriorates.

The magistrate denounces "the lack of resources due to the deliberate choice of the county council to reduce spending on child protection".

An emergency plan was put in place in June by the president of the department, Christian Poiret, who wants there to be “no longer a single child awaiting placement entrusted to the department”.

Among the measures is the reopening of 150 places in homes.

But "this barely corresponds to the needs of the Roubaix-Tourcoing sector alone", disputes the South union.

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  • Company

  • Lille

  • Hauts-de-France

  • Child protection

  • Social

  • Child

  • Justice

  • Violence