Child and youth welfare facilities has been a sharp increase in the size of the population since 2015, posing special challenges for child and youth welfare services. The expansion of the programme, above all early interventional help for special target groups with higher risk factors in particular, should thus be continued. Increased number of approvals for the support of young adults of legal age It is very positive that support for young adults of legal age has increased. The highest proportion is in Carinthia at 12.4% indicating an increase of 4% compared to the previous year. Nevertheless, the NPM considers establishing a legal claim to continued support beyond reaching legal age as necessary as increasing the maximum age to 24. In Burgenland, the possibility of extending care up to the age of 24 is to be implemented soon. Many positive changes on the institutional level The willingness of most of the owners and operators to rectify deficits observed during the monitoring visits by the commissions directly after the visit was very high last year too. Feedback from many facilities confirmed that the expertise and external perspective of the commissions are much appreciated and the facilities endeavour to quickly implement the recommendations. Group rules and the consequences for violations thereof are often grounds for criticism. One major operator defined new rules that were made available to all shared accommodations with the requirement to adapt their own set of rules accordingly. Withholding pocket money as a consequence of breaching the rules in a shared accommodation for girls was abolished. The children in a shared accommodation who had complained about the disproportionate consequences imposed for harmless breaches of the rules confirmed on the follow-up visit that these had been abolished. Mechanisms for and forms of participation are still missing in some facilities or were installed but not sufficiently used. There had been no children’s team meeting for nine months in one shared accommodation; it was continued on the recommendation of the NPM. In other shared accommodations, children’s teams only met sporadically and are now held regularly. Facilities invited the Ombuds Offices for Children and Youths to come and introduce themselves on the recommendation of the NPM if commissions noticed that the minors were not familiar with these institutions. If there were no Ombuds Offices for Children or telephone hotline (“Rat auf Draht”) posters in a facility, the NPM reminded the operator that information on external complaint offices that also deal with the problems of minors anonymously shall be made available and the children shall be informed of their existence. On the recommendation of Commission 6, the technical supervision of Burgenland designed a standardised form for reporting reportable incidences for all of the facilities in the Land. In one shared accommodation, a social pedagogue was appointed to report measures that restrict freedom to the representatives of the residents. An additional male employee was included in one team on the recommendation of the NPM. The mental strain in the workplace was evaluated separately in some facilities on the recommendation of commissions. 65