National and local governments must come together for children at risk of abuse

For thousands of kids who suffer abuse and neglect, daily routines outside of the home constitute more than a “nice to have”. School, daycare, after school clubs, and crucially, the support of guardians and mentors, are vital for many children’s safety, to say nothing of their long term prospects.

As governments around the world have shut down schools and nurseries due to the COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerable children have been left in compromised situations, unable to seek their normal support structures or to make meaningful contact with social workers assigned to keep them safe.

Times of crisis place undue stress on already difficult household situations, and often, parents of vulnerable children attend their own rehabilitation programs during the day. Once the coronavirus struck, many of these programs were also put on hold.

Roughly a month into their lockdown, the government of the Netherlands hadn’t yet seen a rise in reports of child abuse at the national level. These reports are often made by professionals – guardians, teachers, nurses, daycare workers, etc. – who have concerns about a child’s welfare.

However, children themselves instigated more phone calls and chat messages to a dedicated hotline, seeking support or wanting to talk about stressful circumstances at home.

The interplay between national and local government responsibility contains several valuable policy lessons for the Netherlands and other governments, as they navigate the “new normal” of life during COVID-19 and plan for the future.

Who should go to school?

When the Netherlands first introduced lockdown measures on the 15th of March to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, children of key workers were allowed to continue going to school.

The children who are already in the care system in the Netherlands – whom the national government has taken into custody or given support to – didn’t get the mandate to continue attending if they were not the children of key workers.

For many of these children, school is crucial to survival: it’s a place where they can expect a level of predictability and stability. At school, they interact with adults who care about their development, they socialise with other kids in ways that don’t necessarily single them out as underprivileged and they may get nutritious meals.

Marga Haagmans, head of Innovation and policy at the Augeo Foundation, an independent charity working to end child abuse and neglect in the Netherlands, explained that the children who need school the most ended up being overlooked as the government’s lockdown measures came into effect.

Within a weekend, some of these kids lost both the ability to go to school and to meet directly with their social workers or legal guardians, adults who have their best interests at heart and who help them navigate the challenges in their lives.

After lobbying from outside organisations, the national government decided to transfer the decision about schooling for children who lived in unsafe homes to local municipalities and the schools themselves.

“If you take a child into custody because you think, as a government, that you should be responsible for these kids, and parents can't anymore because they have too many problems,” explained Haagman, “then the question is, can you then just leave it to the school or to the local governments to decide if you give these kids space in school or not?”

This deferral meant that local authorities were responsible for the group of children that the national government had classified as vulnerable. The opportunity for some kids to slip through the cracks and be overlooked became too likely.

“We don't really get an overview of how local governments are dealing with this. We know that there are a lot of good examples, but there's not one particular place where someone is monitoring how every community deals with this,” Haagmans said. This is where the national government could have retained a degree of monitoring, rather than localising the issue.

Haagmans also pointed out that there’s a difference between allowing these at-risk children to go to school and proactively facilitating it, or even requiring it.

Because school teachers, daycare guardians, and social workers are often trained to detect child abuse and neglect, it’s vitally important that children don’t lose contact with these professionals, even during a pandemic.

The rise in telephone calls and chat messages during the Dutch lockdown suggests that too much of the burden fell on children themselves when these communications typically come from the adults entrusted with their care.

The government’s quick response in deferring decisions to local councils, then, didn’t end up giving vulnerable kids the provisions they needed during the crisis.

Unprecedented situations like the coronavirus lockdown illuminate the need for crisis planning within government strategies so that the most vulnerable in our societies aren’t hit even harder.

Working with all organisations to tackle child abuse

Historically, Haagmans and her colleagues have found it hard to get child abuse on the radar, especially of local politicians. Since 2008, the national government placed it on their priority list, and as a result, they designed and conducted a national program focused on the subject.

“Violence, child abuse and neglect – is something you really have to work to get on the agenda. There's a lot of other subjects who seem to be more interesting to politicians,” reported Haagmans.

After meeting with external organisations, the national government recognised that the lockdown measures were putting undue strain on already vulnerable children and worked to put new and improved measures into place.

As of late April 2020, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport reported that “if safety is at risk due to domestic violence of child abuse, professional caretakers [can] always visit families within the guidelines of our health institution (RIVM).”

The government also launched a campaign aimed at increasing public awareness of domestic violence during the lockdown, particularly for victims and bystanders. It will be publicized on TV, radio, and social media.

“So far, a valuable lesson is the effectiveness of working together with all organizations and parties involved in a pragmatic manner to protect vulnerable groups”, a member of the government said. “Through the continuous exchange of information with experts, institutions and civil society organizations, we can not only monitor the situation but also roll out new policies in a relatively short time.”

Within the judicial system, the government reported that the Public Prosecution Service (‘Openbaar Ministerie’) would prioritise cases involving (sexual) violence and vulnerable victims.

The police force has also been briefed to closely monitor cases involving domestic violence and the government feels confident that it has sufficient capacity for an effective response should the number of such cases increase.

Although the mandatory quarantines have exposed challenges and inequalities across societies, Haagmans hoped that the bright light it shone on the youngest and most vulnerable members of society will have lasting effects on policy plans.

These underserved children are more likely to be unemployed, sick, or distressed later in life. “But that's in 20 years”, explained Haagmans. “So politicians who are making our policies right now, don't have to deal with that. That's the problem of the next generation.”

In the here and now, Haagmans hopes that the national government will become even more aware of the importance of protecting children from the most damaging and violent adult behaviour through monitoring at the macro level.

“These kids need something to give them the feeling that they are seen, that they matter, that they are important too,” she said. – Megan Dent

(Picture credit: Unsplash)