The Harsh Realities of Closed Youth Care: A Firsthand Account

Your teenage years are the time to experiment. The time in which you discover what your identity is, what you think is right and wrong, what suits your norms and values. The time of rebellion. At least, that’s all possible if you get a good foundation at home. But what if your crib is located somewhere where this is not the case? Because one of your parents is addicted or has psychological problems. Because you struggle with depression or were bullied for a long time in primary school. Due to physical and mental abuse, which affects your self-image and puts you in places where you should not be at that age. In short, the children who have not known unconditional love. Who lack the basics to love themselves. Who themselves become addicted, end up in the criminal circuit, struggle with depression or end up in human trafficking.

Mohini Awadhpersad is an experienced expert and professional.

I am Mohini Awadhpersad, I was one of these young people – at the age of fourteen I ended up in closed youth care. Just like Jason Bhugwandass, who presented his report this week on abuses in closed youth care. In that report, young people talk about, among other things, being frequently and forcibly tied up, rape, and bullying by staff.

You would like to offer these children closeness, help them feel the value of life, give love so that they at least learn from someone what love is. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen. They are referred from place to place – from foster home to institution. There they again get the feeling of being worthless, they again build up trauma because of the things they see and how they are treated.

Closed youth care is the end station in the youth care chain, where you are literally locked up. You are placed there “for your own safety”, say the guardian or youth protector. As a young person you hope that you will finally get the help you need here, because apparently there is nothing left after this station. At the same time you feel that something is wrong with you; because why do you have to end up here and why is this your last chance?

Closed youth care was created to help a group of young people who were dropping out everywhere and to prevent them from ending up in youth prison. There are now approximately 695 places. Previously, ‘criminal’ and ‘civil’ young people were placed together under one roof, which changed in 2008. Unfortunately, the people who worked there did not change. Many care providers in closed youth care were used to acting repressively and working with punishments and rewards.

Exception

Upon entering you already feel a cold feeling spread over your body through the high fences around the building that will be your ‘home’ for the foreseeable future. As standard, you will be searched to see if you are carrying anything dangerous. They don’t ask you, they just do a physical or clothing examination, even if you have been abused before. Unknown hands on your body, from people who have to help you.

As a young person you have to get used to new rules that are the same for everyone, even if they don’t suit you at all, such as not having your own phone even though you have always had your phone with you. If you don’t do what they want, your leave – the days you are at home – will be shortened or taken away completely. This sometimes means you cannot see your parents, family or friends for weeks.

Young people slowly change into a different being

Young people tell stories in which they were pushed to the ground by five people because they became ‘aggressive’ or did not cooperate with what the group leadership wanted. After a fifth time of struggle you see young people giving up. They slowly turn into a different being, completely different from how they came in. Some young people skip a meal because, for example, they are late for breakfast. Others can go weeks without eating because their religious beliefs are not taken into account. If you are lucky, you have a few employees where you feel that they do this work with their heart. By the way they approach you and talk to you. Most young people say that this is the exception.

The isolation cells have now been closed, but young people are sent to their own rooms for longer to ‘cool off’. Instead of having the conversation, young people should be alone in their room and think about their behavior for themselves.

The last station

I later started working in closed youth care and witnessed a boy on the premises making a (successful) attempt at suicide. But the staff was used to that – they immediately went back to business as usual, as if sadness was not allowed to be there, as if the conversation was not allowed to happen. The staff continues to work and loses a piece of their soul because they have experienced this for years. They no longer see how intense this is for the other young people who live there. As a new employee, it does not feel good to be vulnerable, as you are seen as weak.

There is a hierarchical and cold culture. Are you still working in the right place if you are no longer frightened by a suicide attempt? Should, at this last station, work people who cannot be vulnerable, while working with the most vulnerable children in society?

I wish I had never had to end up at this last station back then, at the age of fourteen. And when I did get there, I had hoped that someone would have given me a hug. That I was given space to develop myself. But instead, I was left to my own devices and left with more trauma than I came in with. Why? I learned to become and act according to what they wanted. With this I masked all my emotions and experiences. To finally, finally be free. So the question is actually: should closed youth care be a final destination for such a vulnerable target group? Or even better; Should there be closed youth care at all?

Also read
Jason himself ended up in closed youth care. Now he exposes the abuses

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2024-03-15 21:53:57


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