70 Skjerfheimkollektivet Skjerfheimkollektivet 18–20 September 2018 Skjerfheimkollektivet is a residential and treatment institution for adolescents between the ages of 15 and 18 with serious substance abuse problems. The institution is a department under “Buskerud, Vestfold and Telemark behandling ungdom”, owned by the Norwegian Children, Youth and Family Affairs Service (Bufetat). Several recommendations were made after the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s visit in 2018. Skjerfheim­kollektivet provided a systematic and detailed description of how it was working on following up the recommendations, both at management level and throughout the staff. In the years before our visit, Skjerfheim­ kollektivet had made a number of changes to the way in which they worked with the residents. The changes meant using a more individual approach to the residents’ treatment and in their everyday lives, less rigidity in operations and more focus on the residents going to school or working outside the institution. The Parliamentary Ombudsman recommended that the institution’s written ­procedures were changed so that they fully reflected the integrity and rights of the adolescents. Skjerfheim­kollektivet followed up the report by revising their institutional plan and their procedures, so that these were in accordance with the actual practice at the institution. NORWEGIAN PARLIAMENTARY OMBUDSMAN National Preventive Mechanism ANNUAL REPORT 2019 Several new courses and changes in staff ­training were also implemented as a result of the ­recommendations made following the visit. The use of coercion may not be routinely ­exercised as a normal part of the institution’s treatment regime or other operations. Skjerfheim­ kollektivet stopped using Section 22 of the Rights Regulations to justify admission camps and treatment-related ‘motivational trips’, and they changed the practice so that trips only take place on a voluntary basis. Skjerfheim also implemented a number of ­measures to work more ­systematically on ­preventing the use of all types of coercion. Among other things, it was emphasised that ‘the use of coercion, as far as possible, should be discussed with the adolescents before ­implementation’. Skjerfheimkollektivet expressed that they found it challenging to implement restrictions on the adolescents’ freedom of movement only at the institution. The Parliamentary Ombudsman ­emphasised that it is the institution’s ­responsibility to ensure that the adolescents’ freedom of movement is not restricted in a way that in practice isolates them from the other residents. The report pointed out that the administrative decisions on the use of coercion and record keeping had a number of weaknesses as regards to justification, completion and dating. Several recommendations were made on how Skjerfheimkollektivet could ensure that procedures on the use of coercive measures were in accordance with the applicable legislation. The recommendations were followed up through several measures. Recommendations were also made to improve the rooms used to perform coercive measures (urine samples and body searches). As a result of this, Skjerfheimkoollektivet has agreed with the Directorate of Public Construction and Property Management (Statsbygg) that these rooms are to be improved and renovated over the course of 2019.