When necessary, house staff, who can provide information on young persons and their attitudes, should take part in these meetings. The Contrôle Général has already emphasised how greatly it is to be regretted that “house mistresses” and other staff, able to provide insight that is likely to make fulfilment of everybody’s work easier, are not included in certain meetings. Nurses, psychologists, when present in the institution, doctors and teachers are also persons whose knowledge of individuals is essential and therefore need to be consulted, in strict compliance, it has to be specified, with confidentiality of treatment and professional secrecy. According the methods that appear to them to be most appropriate, the supervisory staff and management are completely free to organise the necessary contacts between them and the educational team, as well as within the educational team itself. Adults need to be as simple and direct as possible in their handling of the children: therein lies the difficulty of their task. The educational principles need to be of the same nature. Any inhuman and degrading treatment obviously has to be banned and children’s sensibilities treated with care: in this regard the Contrôle Général has already mentioned certain search procedures at the time of return of adolescents from weekends spent with their families. On the other hand, firmness and, all the more so, refusal are in no way to be excluded. The young persons cannot be allowed to do whatever they want, including in terms of respect for their own dignity: the inspectors have seen many young persons’ rooms in very sorry state. It is the same at home with their family it may be said. However, education indeed consists of promoting change in these situations. Shared meals have a meaning. As do services rendered. Prohibitions need to be respected rather than simply serving as a reference for punishment, as the Contrôle Général has already written. Tutors cannot act exclusively as adolescents’ close friends, leaving it to gendarmes and police officers to come for all kinds of reasons, in order to make up for the failings of a collective life that has not been properly established. Finally, because of the difficulty of their work, the staff of CEFs indeed deserve not only verbal support, but concrete conditions for dealing with their difficulties. Regular supervision needs to be established, in the absence of the management and in the presence of a supporting third party, as recommended by the Contrôle Général59 and as already implemented in many young offenders’ institutions. Difficulties can provoke disputes and proceedings for the resolution thereof (mediation etc.) need to be provided for by the managers of institutions. Industrial disputes also need to be carefully assessed and other signs, such as staff absenteeism (and, conversely, duration of presence in the institution, for example) need to be specifically taken into account. These efforts are required in order to increase staff stability, which is also a condition of success. 2.3.1.2 – External Assistance Too many CEF are, so to speak, left to their own devices after having been set up, without any external support to contribute to the success of the educational project. Mistrust prevails, it is true, at the local level and when plans to establish an institution are mentioned, the principal concern of local residents is to isolate and exclude it as the Contrôle Général noted at Hendaye. 59 Opinion (Avis) of 17th June 2011, Journal Officiel of 12th July 2011 54