npm annual report 2016 / observations and recommendations Veikkari special children’s home • The difficulties young people experienced in accessing acute psychiatric care was found a problem in the unit. Even when a young person is taken by ambulance to a psychiatric assessment, he or she is usually returned to the unit the next day. • The facilities were not accessible. • Most social workers meet the children assigned to them at least twice a year, also outside meetings organised to prepare customer plans, which was considered positive. The social workers of a certain municipality, on the other hand, hardly ever come and meet the children placed in the institution by that municipality. • As a rule, decisions to restrict a child’s freedom of movement were made for seven days. The Deputy-Ombudsman noted that when making decisions on the duration of such a restriction, the type of restrictions that are essential for the child’s situation and interests in each individual case should be assessed. For example, routinely restricting a child’s freedom of movement for at least seven days without individual grounds could not be considered acceptable. • The unit had made a decision on restrictive measures that involved isolation concerning a young person who was registered with the unit but who, at the time the decision was made, was physically located at an other unit. The young person had been apprehended after running away and taken to another unit to wait for transport back to their place of substitute care. The unit had been following instructions issued to it. The Deputy-Ombudsman found that the unit or the staff in the place of substitute care do basically not have a right to impose restrictive measures on a child outside the unit. Decisions on such measures should be made by the competent employee in the temporary place of substitute care. 49