2.3. Child and youth welfare facilities 2.3.1. Introduction In 2015, the commissions visited 78 shared accommodations and residential homes for children and adolescents who cannot live with their families. Since 2013 a cooperation agreement exists between the NPM and the children and youth advocacy organisations of the nine Laender. The NPM therefore invited representatives of these organisations to Vienna in 2015 to participate in discussion sessions. In particular, the joint discussions focused on how to provide increased protection for unaccompanied minor refugees. This cooperation proves fruitful: due to agreed and coordinated cooperation, participants are succeeding in raising consciousness about children’s rights. Increasing demand for special places As has been the case during the first three years of the commissions’ activities, there are still too few special places for children and adolescents with mental illnesses. At shared accommodations or residential homes with socio-pedagogical programmes where staffing numbers are low and there are few employees with special training, it is impossible to meet the special needs of these children and adolescents. Scientifically-based child and youth welfare and protection plans which were drawn up in Lower Austria in 2014 also drew attention to the fact that there are increasing numbers of children with major behavioural problems and psychiatric disorders, serious attachment disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders and highly problematic social behaviour disorders who cannot cope with social or group situations and whose aggressive outbursts tend to traumatise other children. Moreover, there is growing demand for care for children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities and additional psychiatric disorders. At socio-pedagogical institutions and facilities, the commissions frequently encountered children and adolescents who urgently needed special care in small groups or even individual care, since they were able to interact in a group to a limited extent and were completely overwhelmed by prevailing conditions. The sense of psychosocial overload which they were experiencing was transferred to the staff, who was sometimes exposed to serious physical attacks. Physical encroachment upon other minors cannot be completely prevented. Anxious fellow residents and destroyed furniture and fittings have a clear story to tell. On the one hand, these are children or adolescents for whom psychiatric problems do not set in until a later stage and for whom suitable facilities cannot be found quickly enough. On the other, because of the lack of special places children and adolescents are housed by child and youth welfare and protection authorities in facilities where the lack of preparations and 59