National Preventive Mechanism The Laender are required to put out scientifically-based plans for facilities operated by child and youth welfare organisations that take future needs into consideration regionally in accordance with the responsibility set forth in Sections 13 and 14 of the Federal Children’s and Youth Service Act. Then more socio-therapeutic placement options would have to be created and it would have to be ensured that private operators expand their services in this sector. Sound children and youth welfare plans In some cases, it is difficult for the NPM to systematically assess the observations made by the commissions, because social pedagogy lacks a consistent terminology and therefore, Austria-wide comparisons are almost impossible, as just the designations for child and youth welfare facilities show. There are shared accommodations for children; socio-pedagogical, intensive pedagogical, socio-therapeutic and socio-psychiatric group homes; curative educational children’s groups and shared accommodations for children and adolescents. As the Federal Children’s and Youth Assistance Act mentions socio-pedagogic facilities only generally, what structural and quality criteria are included under the individual terms has not been determined. For example, there are currently socio-psychiatric facilities headed by multiprofessional teams only in Vienna. The situation is similar with regard to the profession of social pedagogues, for which there is no occupational law, no occupational protection (eligibility for a pension in the case of invalidity) and therefore no uniform education or training. As a result, the educational level of the trained professionals employed in socio-pedagogical group homes differs widely. The individual training institutions provide various modules both with regard to teaching content and number of class and practice hours. Continuing education is not consistent across Austria either. The Federal Children’s and Youth Assistance Act 2013 is vague and the only standardisation it stipulates is that for the provision of services by child and youth welfare services “trained professionals must be employed who have been trained for the respective field of activity and are personally suitable”. The details of these requirements are left up to the Laender, which recognise and develop completely different types of training. Only the Act on Health and Social Care Professions (Sozialberufegesetz) in Upper Austria has recently included the profession “Professional Sociopedagogical Care in Youth Welfare”. The professional applicability of this training is limited to this local area and is not recognised in other Laender. No uniform training Austria-wide for professionals The NPM has been collaborating with children and youth advocates since 2012. Cooperation has been excellent and has resulted in several joint successes. In numerous cases, the commissions have used reports about suspected problems in facilities as an opportunity to undertake an unannounced visit. The NPM would like to thank the children and youth advocates for the excellent cooperation. 105