Drop age limit for youth care to protect young people from homelessness: foundation

Many young people end up homeless after their 18th birthday because they no longer qualify for youth care. The Forgotten Child Foundation, therefore, called on the government to abandon the age limit for youth care. Youth Care Netherlands supports the plea, but the Cabinet is against it, NOS reports.

The current youth law states that youth care stops when a person turns 18. “For many young people, it is a party when they turn 18, but for these young people, it means that they lose their place to live and help,” said Margot Ende, director of the Forgotten Child Foundation. “They are expected to stand on their own two feet. An unfair and impossible start to adult life.” According to the foundation, 3,300 children in youth care will turn 18 this year.

Youth Care Netherlands also thinks 18 is too young to stop youth care. “Dutch children leave home on average at the age of 23, but young people in residential youth care must be ready for the world at age 18,” spokesperson Wouter van der Galien said to NOS. That’s asking for trouble. “In practice, one is ready to stand on their own two feet at age 17, the other only at age 24. We would rather see it be more custom-made.”

The Forgotten Child surveyed a random sample of young people who lived in youth care at 17. They found that slightly more than half who lived in a group had to move. Almost a quarter did not know whether they could stay in their group home a month before they turned 18.

Young people can extend youth care after they turn 18 by requesting it from the m municipality every six months. According to The Forgotten Child, this system does not work well. Requests are not always granted, and that uncertainty may be too hard to face for many in the vulnerable target group.

The Dutch government is against dropping the age limit for youth care, stressing the importance of good guidance during the outflow to independence. State Secretary Maarten van Ooijen (Youth and Prevention) told the broadcaster that he also doesn’t want “everything to fall away from one day to the next” and for kids to be “in uncertainty until the last moment.” But according to him, the solution is good guidance.

“We know long in advance that someone will turn 18, and youth aid organizations can prepare for this much better and earlier,” said Van Ooijen. According to him, that is more important than young people staying longer in institutions.

In September, the Netherlands extended the age limit for foster care to 21. But that does not apply to other forms of youth care, such as family homes, group homes, and closed youth care. According to Van Ooijen, the age limit increased for foster care and not the others because children in foster care live in a family setting.