44 In the Ombudsman’s assessment, there was a clear risk that the motivational trips at the Collective were seen as punishment. It was difficult to see any correspondence between many of the circumstances that could lead to a motivational trip and the guidelines to the Rights Regulations concerning ‘destructive behaviour’ or ‘necessary on the basis of the responsibility to provide the individual with care and considerations for everyone's safety and happiness’. When the staff had decided to take a young person on a motivational trip, they were normally pulled aside by staff members in the hallway near the exit of the main building. If the young person did not wish to go on the trip and did not go out to the car voluntarily, the staff and the young person remained in the hallway until the latter consented to the trip. In such situations, the staff would block the doors in the hallway by standing in front of them to prevent the young person from going anywhere but straight out to the car. The young person was not allowed to return to the rest of the group or to their own room, and nor were they allowed to pack their things. The young people were not always told about the reason for the motivational trip. Nor were they told how long the motivational trip would last. The management said that the young people couldn’t learn about the duration of the trip, because the young person him/herself and the work carried out during the trip determined how long the trip would last. Several of the young people experienced this as the staff waiting for them to ‘confess something’ and that if they confessed to the rights things, they would be allowed to go back to the institution. The pressure that was exercised in the hallway before a trip without it being possible for the young person to withdraw to their room, the lack of openness as regards the reason for the trip and its length, the ‘phaseless’ period and the uncertainty about how long this would last, and the plenary assembly requirement constituted a worrying lack of openness and respect from the institution vis-à-vis the young people. NORWEGIAN PARLIAMENTARY OMBUDSMAN National Preventive Mechanism ANNUAL REPORT 2017 The fact that, in the past year, there had been an instance where a young person had been subjected to physical pressure to complete a motivational trip, underpins concerns about the risk of inhuman treatment that young people are subjected to through the collective’s use of involuntary motivational trips. Alta Youth Centre 26–29 September 2017 Alta Youth Centre is an emergency institution that accepts young people between the ages of 13 and 18 from Finnmark, Troms and Nordland counties. Alta Youth Centre was approved for placement without the consent of the person in question. Main findings The centre very rarely used force in connection with admission. It was emphasised that invasive coercive measures would not contribute to making the young people feel safe while in such a vulnerable phase, and that there are stringent requirements for using force. Alta Youth Centre had generally made few administrative decisions on the use of force in recent years and seemed to be consciously working to avoid the use of force. Among other things, the centre had developed a milieu therapy approach vis-à-vis the young people. The approach is concerned with the young people’s individual needs and how the milieu therapy can be adapted and special challenges dealt with for the individual. Alta Youth Centre very rarely used force that involved restricting the residents’ freedom of movement, and that the institution made active endeavours to use other means to make the residents feel safe. Alta Youth Centre found that being followed up too closely could be a trigger for many of the young people, making them retreat more. A review of protocols and records gave the impression that Alta Youth Centre was thorough in its log keeping and that both logs and use-of-force records provided concrete and individual descriptions. In general, the records contained thorough descriptions of the situations and it was possible for external parties to gain an impression of the staff's experience of and reasoning in the situations. There were also