In 2022, there were 409 registered escapees from child welfare institutions in Norway.
Running away is everything from not showing up at the agreed time to situations where the police must be called.
– In Norway, it is not permitted to implement prison-like measures. Therefore coercive measures such as locking up and shielding from others are very limited and always temporary, explains Kjetil Andreas Ostling, divisional director in BufdirBufdirThe Directorate for Children, Youth and Families in a message to VG.
He says that the institutions are basically open.
– This provides the best basis for positive development.
There are clear routines for how the institutions should act if a young person leaves the institution and how the police should be involved in such cases.
– Where serious intoxication is the reason for institutional placement, there is an opportunity to limit the use of the telephone, freedom of movement and to carry out intoxication testing under given conditions, says Kjetil Andreas Ostling.
Reported missing
On the night of Sunday 8 January, the twins Mina Alexandra and Mille Andrea Hjalmarsen (16) died at a private address in Spydeberg in Østfold, probably after an overdose.
A third teenage girl survived and was sent to hospital. Her legal aid lawyer told VG on Thursday that the girl is broken and despairing.
All three girls had measures through child protection.
According to the police, the twins had been reported missing from an institution they were staying at under the auspices of child protection, shortly before they died.
In 2019, there were 388 escapes from all types of child welfare institutions, state and private, the figures from Bufdir show.
The following year there were 432 and in 2021 the number was 438.
The figures are raw data and not taken from a public report. The figures do not include unaccompanied minor asylum seekers.
Drug institutions
When drugs are involved, work is done with the youth themselves and the systems around them, including family, networks, school and social relationships.
– The aim of the treatment is for young people to achieve a desire for change and experience mastery of their development work. A large proportion need simultaneous services from youth psychiatry, other health services and some an adapted school plan. Some also have simultaneous follow-up from the correctional service.
The number of young people living in substance abuse institutions was 123 last year, according to the professional system of Bufdir.
The figure does not include children who belong to Oslo, who are placed through the Norwegian Children’s and Family Agency in Oslo.
– These are young people with persistent drug abuse, where the main focus of the institutional stay is to treat the drug addiction, Bufdir explains.
This is not the same as the number of children with drug problems in institutions, as young people in other types of institutions also have drug problems.
The twins Mina Alexandra and Mille Andrea Hjalmarsen (16) buried Wednesday 25 January in Askim church, at 10.30am. The church will be open.
A man in his 20s has been charged with negligent homicide following the deaths. It was at his home that the 16-year-old twins were found dead on the night of Sunday.
Another man is charged with having sold drugs to the girls and having reserved reserved To “provide” in this context may mean that the accused may have ensured that the girls became helpless through, for example, drugs.the girls in a helpless state.
Both deny criminal guilt.
Child protection has notified one broad scrutiny of the public’s failure to follow up the twins who died at Spydeberg. Both health and school must be involved.
Minister for Children and Families Kjersti Toppe (Sp) has notified full review of all deaths linked to child welfare institutions in the last five years.
