National Preventive Mechanism model effect. Furthermore, the traumatological and pedagogical care provided is insufficient without a multi-professional team in view of the illnesses of the minors in care. There is also a lack of crisis de-escalation places in Austria. The crisis centres of the City of Vienna were full all year and in some phases even overcrowded with 13 instead of the planned 8 children. The cause was also the above-average waiting time for a suitable place in shared accommodation. Occupancy levels such as these permit only pedagogical emergency care and no professional crisis de-escalation. In Lower Austria, 16 crisis de-escalation places for under six-year-olds were closed due to restructuring and only half as many places were created at another location. In other Laender, there are no crisis centres at all. This means that minors have to be brought directly from their families of origin to shared accommodation. This is always a severe strain for the facilities, which thus have little information about the pending challenges with the minors and their families. Missing crisis deescalation places It has also been observed that some of the problems highlighted by the NPM are recognised by the departments for child and youth welfare and protection of the Laender, and solutions are promised. However, subsequent visits indicated that the situation in the facilities was unchanged. It seems that the problem awareness of the technical supervision does not reach the socio-educational personnel. Implementing even the smallest demands seems to be painstaking and appears to require a lot of explanatory work. For example, improvements in connection with the right to privacy such as the provision of lockable boxes or the installation of devices that allow the rooms to be locked from the inside, are often readily agreed to the NPM, but then not implemented. On subsequent visits or visits to other shared accommodations belonging to the same private or public operator, the commissions found the boxes or safes, but the minors either had no keys for them or there were no batteries for the safes, so that they were de facto unusable. The NPM will continue to insist on exercising the right to privacy of children and adolescents in out-of-home care in the coming years. Promises are often not kept In some residential homes, the NPM found alarms in hallways that were in operation on a daily basis according to information from the personnel. The NPM judged the general operation of alarms as an inappropriate infringement of the right to privacy of the children and adolescents in care, and demanded that the alarms only be activated when required. The facility assured that the alarm should only be activated in warranted cases of well-founded fear and only for a certain period of time for the protection of the children and adolescents. Infringement of the private sphere In a facility for assisted living for young girls in Tyrol, unannounced night patrols using flashlights were carried out routinely. The minors found this procedure stressful. It disturbed their night’s rest. The NPM viewed this method as an inappropriate infringement and not as a moderate measure for the 139