Children and young people now lodge their own complaints with the Ombudsman The case processing times of municipalities and problems getting in touch with caseworkers are also recurrent issues of complaints from children and young people. In cases concerning the law of domestic relations – typically conflicts between parents – children and young people may contact us and tell us which parent they want to live with or how much time they want to be able to spend with their mother and their father, respectively. We have also had an enquiry concerning a girl’s subsistence basis. Her parents had moved abroad and she could not support herself. The municipality had decided that she was not eligible for social security benefit because she was under the age of 18 and therefore had to be supported financially by her parents. We go out of our way to help Children and young people – especially those in difficult life situations – need to be met with understanding and in a way that makes them feel that their wishes and complaints are given weight and taken seriously. Therefore, each and every enquiry we receive at the Ombudsman’s Children’s Division is treated as an important case of significance to the child or young person. We are not always able to help. First and foremost, the Ombudsman’s Children’s Division exists in order to resolve legal issues, for instance breaches of rules. However, whether we are able to provide concrete help in their specific case or not, we emphasise flexibility and dialogue-based communication with the children or young people when we process their cases. By flexibility we mean that – to the widest extent possible – we communicate with the children/young people in the way they prefer. Only if it would be against the applicable rules, we cannot meet a wish to communicate in a certain manner. For example, the Ombudsman is not able to communicate via insecure e-mail about confidential matters. In our complaint form, we encourage children and young people to provide us with a telephone number and to let us know when we can contact them. Very often, we need to contact them because their complaints do not contain all the information necessary in order for us to move on with the case. Since secure e-mail cannot normally be used with children and young people, we need to be able to communicate with them on the telephone. In addition, a telephone conversation gives us the opportunity to tell them about our case processing procedure and what kind of help they can expect the Ombudsman to be able to provide. 45