Care providers seriously failed girl, 11, abused into coma by foster parents: report
Care providers seriously failed the 11-year-old Vlaardingen girl who was systematically abused by her foster parents to the point that she ended up in a coma for months and now needs permanent care. The Health and Youth Care Inspectorate and Security and Justice Inspectorate came to this conclusion in an investigation into the care for the child, sources involved told the Telegraaf. The report should be published in the coming weeks.
The child was 10 years old when she and her sister were entrusted to foster parents John and Daisy van den B., both 38, in March 2022. The sister returned to her biological mother in 2023, the girl remained with the Van den B.s. The Inspectorates’ report states that the foster parents systematically and increasingly violently abused her for months, giving her barely anything to eat, physically assaulting her, locking her into an electrified cage, and portraying her as a pathological liar.
The care providers responsible for her - foster care organization Enver and youth protection organization William Schrikker Stichting (WSS), which has legal guardianship over the girl - turned a blind eye, ignoring the cries for help from the child herself, her biological mother, neighbors, her school, and even the police.
According to the Telegraaf, the child’s foster care supervisor, “Rob”, carries a big part of the blame. He was supposed to monitor the girl’s well-being, but instead acted more like a family friend to the foster parents, not only ignoring signs of abuse but outright denying them. He insisted that John and Daisy van den B. offered a “loving place” for the girl, despite clear signs of abuse and previous reports of them abusing other foster children.
In July 2021, Evner placed three Syrian brothers with John and Daisy van den B. under Rob’s supervision. The oldest boy was moved a week later after an argument with John van den B., but the other two stayed until 13 September 2021, when they were urgently moved due to signs of child abuse. The foster parents allegedly kept them in a dog cage and didn’t give them enough food or clothing. The police asked Nidos, the youth protection agency responsible for the three boys, to press charges, but that didn’t happen for unclear reasons. Six months later, Rob placed the Vlaardingen girl and her sister in the same family.
Between June and August 2022, there were several worrying reports about sexually transgressive behavior in the foster family, including that Jonn van den B. had sexually abused the girl, according to the newspaper. However, a youth worker from WWS stated that these signals were untrue and Rob was adamant that the accusations were unjustified. No one at WWS or Enver spoke to the girl herself, and no doctor examined her medically.
In May last year, John van de B. rushed the severely malnourished 10-year-old girl to a hospital with multiple broken bones and serious brain damage. Doctors immediately called the police, who arrested the foster parents a short time later. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) suspects them of attempted manslaughter, severe assault, unlawful deprivation of liberty, and putting and leaving someone in a healthy state. The OM is also charging them with abusing the girl’s sister and two of the three Syrian brothers.
The inspectorates conclude that Enver and WWS did not communicate sufficiently about the previous abuse, resulting in important signals being missed. They called it incomprehensible that the care providers still placed children with this couple. They also said that the foster care supervisor was far too friendly with the foster parents and did not maintain a professional distance. His close involvement seriously endangered the girl’s well-being, the inspectorates said.
According to the Telegraaf’s sources, the inspectorates will place both Enver and WSS under supervision and launch a follow-up investigation into individual employees.
“Enver is shocked and deeply saddened by what happened to the girl in the foster family in Vlaardingen. Our thoughts go out to her and her loved ones. The social outrage was and is great and we feel that too,” Enver said in a written response to the Telegraaf. “Every day, our employees work with great dedication and expertise for the safety and well-being of children. It, therefore, hits us hard how things went wrong here.” The WWS will only respond after the report is published.
Spokesperson Bart Visser of Namens de Familie, who represents the mothers of all four abused children, said the families are horrified. “They hope that the report will provide answers to a number of questions. They will respond after the inspectorates have published it.”
