National Preventive Mechanism
facilities, which are operated by public authorities or private owners,
face ever increasing requirements as far as both quality and quantity are
concerned. Psychological damage in the first years of life are serious and
require differentiated and needs-oriented possibilities and resources.
As had been the case in 2013, in 2014 it was obvious during visits by the
commissions that there is a lack of special places for minors with a psychiatric
diagnosis or experience of being in a psychiatric institution. Children and
adolescents with mental disorders in group homes, where there is neither
adequate staff nor a multi-professional team with psychotherapists and
psychologists, have and create problems, which can sometimes intensify to a
crisis level and be accompanied by significant risk to themselves and others.
Risk factor
The situation is similar when a crisis diagnosis is performed resulting in a
decision on whether care should be subsequently considered and what form
it should take. When, for example, adolescents, who have committed or are
suspected of criminal offences, are released from pre-trial detention and are
placed in crisis centres together with children upwards of the age of three,
one is permitting conditions that sometimes make socio-pedagogical work
impossible.
Especially smaller children have reported to the commissions that they
are sometimes very afraid of the extremely aggressive adolescents. This
is understandable after impulse outbursts that range from destruction of
furniture to physical assaults of minors or staff. Social pedagogues have
indicated that in their work with highly aggressive adolescents, some of whom
are prone to violence, they themselves cannot ensure adequate protection in
acute phases. To get such grave crisis situations under control, they must call
for police assistance. Such difficult borderline situations are the exception
rather than the rule, but they are a part of reality in social pedagogy that is
anything but negligible and are experienced as very stressful.
Crisis situation
Research into aggression and violence and the recognition of cumulative
risk factors suggest that prevention of violence should begin not with the
undesirable behaviour of minors but with the circumstances as well and
this sometimes makes even professional helpers appear helpless. The
commissions are active in this direction and the recommendations should
be interpreted in this context as well.
Individualised help is
necessary
The experiences of the commissions show that some minors with mental
disorders and resulting psychosocial impairments have the potential of
bringing many facilities to their absolute limits and they often find it difficult
to accept the standard services available to them. Repeatedly changing the
institution taking care of them hampers the processing of problems, because
“more of change” does not necessarily make the conditions of their care
better. In order to stabilise them, these minors need specific assistance services
that are custom-tailored for them and that they can accept. But even so-
Violence-fre upbringing
as a human right
103
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