The Ombudsman’s Children’s Division carries out monitoring visits to smaller, private accommodation facilities for young people in 2022

Publiceret 21-01-2022

In 2022, the Ombudsman’s Children’s Division is going to visit a number of smaller, private accommodation facilities for young people.

The monitoring visits will be directed especially towards facilities with young residents with alcohol and drug addictions, self-harming behaviour or similar serious problems. Among other things, the purpose of this is to gain knowledge of how the facilities handle the special challenges this group of young people face.

The monitoring visits will focus on whether the facilities know about, including have guidelines for, prevention and handling of alcohol and drug abuse and self-harming behaviour.

Since young people with this type of challenges, who are placed in institutions, can be especially vulnerable to abuse, for instance of a sexual nature, focus is also going to be on the institutions’ knowledge of prevention and handling of sexual assaults.

‘Young people with alcohol and drug addictions constitute a particularly vulnerable group that may need more help than the usual pedagogical initiatives for them to move on in life. It is therefore important that the accommodation facilities also pay attention to the more specialised knowledge needed in order to help this group of young people,’ says Parliamentary Ombudsman Niels Fenger. 

The monitoring visits will also focus on, among other things, whether staff know the rules about the use of physical force and about returning young people who run away from the facility as well as the rules about body searching, searching living spaces and drug testing.

Further details:

Susanne Veiga, Senior Head of Division, tel. +45 33 13 25 12

Facts

Themes for the Children’s Division’s monitoring activities in 2022

The theme for monitoring visits to institutions for children in 2022 is smaller, private accommodation facilities for young people. Focus will be on:

  • Use of physical force
  • Returning runaways
  • Detaining in connection with or during placement
  • Searching of body or living spaces
  • Drug testing
  • Prevention and handling of alcohol and drug abuse, sexual assaults and self-harming behaviour.

Facilities visited

As a starting point, the monitoring visits will be directed towards accommodation facilities with a maximum of 8-10 places and with residents typically aged 13-17 years.

The facilities are randomly selected but spread across the country in order to ensure geographical diversity.

Generally on the Ombudsman’s monitoring visits

  • The Parliamentary Ombudsman regularly carries out monitoring visits to public and private institutions, especially where people are or can be deprived of their liberty.
  • The monitoring visits are carried out in collaboration with DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture and the Danish Institute For Human Rights, both contributing with medical and human rights expertise.
  • The Ombudsman’s Children’s Division carries out monitoring visits to institutions for children.
  • Each year, a theme is chosen for the year’s monitoring visits to institutions for adults as well as institutions for children.
  • Each year, the Ombudsman prepares a report in which he summarises and presents the most important results in relation to the year’s thematic visits.
  • The Ombudsman continuously publishes information about the institutions etc. he has visited, and he also publishes the concluding letters to the institutions.
  • Read more about the Ombudsman’s monitoring activities.