“Child Protection Crisis: Overcrowded Centers and Desperate Shortage of Beds”

Banners hung on a fence alert the few motorists and pedestrians who pass in front. “Emergency reception in danger”, can we read on the fence of the Henri-Fréville childhood center in Chantepie, near Rennes. This large white sheet made by the staff welcoming children awaiting placement sounds like a great cry of alarm. For the first time in fifty years of existence, the employees of the child protection structure have started a strike movement. Proof, according to them, “of the urgency of the situation”.

Just over 600 children are welcomed here each year. Children whom justice has deemed “in danger” and whose emergency placement it has ordered. “We are desperately short of places. The problem is that we have no way out for them. The average stay with us is four, five or six months. But we have children who have been there for two years, because they have no place elsewhere, ”says an educator from the childhood center.

Beds in bathrooms

Funded by the departmental council of Ille-et-Vilaine, the structure has no choice but to accommodate these minors. But under what conditions ? “We sometimes have to install mattresses in the bathrooms or in the living room”, testifies this educator. A former disused official accommodation has also been used as a reception center for several months, for lack of anything better. The department of Ille-et-Vilaine which finances the establishment has increased its budget by 11% in 2023 to deal with the situation. “It’s a real crisis. We can’t absorb the flow,” admits Anne-Françoise Courteille. The vice-president of the department was struck by the daily life of the nursery which welcomes children from 0 to 3 years old. With 20 places, the structure currently accommodates 24 children. “Some are in very bad shape and suffer from the addictive behavior of their parents. These are complicated situations to manage, which require health monitoring.

The elected socialist promised that an early childhood structure would open on January 1, 2024 to relieve the nursery. Family assistants who take in minors are also called upon, but with caution. “We have to be careful not to exhaust them.” To improve the care of children, Anne-Françoise Courteille would like the State to make child protection a major national cause. “It’s a taboo subject but there are children to protect because there are families who are not doing well”. Since the health crisis, the number of requests for placement of children has continued to grow in France. In Ille-et-Vilaine, 250 to 300 children are kept at home due to a lack of available places.