Children and young people now lodge their own complaints with the Ombudsman Helping two girls Before the opening of the Children’s Division, we contemplated whether we would get many enquiries from children in a crisis – enquiries that would require psychological or social sector specialist knowledge and which we would have to send on. However, almost all the enquiries which we have received from children and young people have been about issues which fall within the core areas of the Ombudsman’s activities, this meaning legal issues, for instance disputes about placement facilities or access. Likewise, long case processing times are a classic complaint theme for the Ombudsman’s legal case officers, and in such cases, we are able to help in the same manner as with complaints lodged by adults. Still, our service and flexibility in our case processing is extended compared to when we deal with adults, who have to present their case with all relevant information to a greater extent. It is early days yet for the Ombudsman’s Children’s Division. Therefore, we can only be pleased that so many children have already found their way to us, and not least that we have been able to make a difference for quite a few of them. In the case of the 17-year-old girl who could not get in touch with her caseworker, we helped by forwarding her complaint to the municipality as a request from the girl that her caseworker contact her as soon as possible. In addition to that, we forwarded her complaint to the mayor as a complaint about the municipality’s case processing. We drew the mayor’s attention to the fact that – in accordance with the Social Services Act – a decision was to have been made six months prior to the girl turning 18 about which kind of help she might be entitled to after turning 18. We asked to be kept informed of the further progress of the case and to receive a copy of the mayor’s reply to the girl. In his reply, the mayor expressed his regrets about the delay of the decision which the municipality was obligated to make. We were also informed that the girl had been granted aftercare after turning 18. The complaint from the girl who complained about the use of coercion at her former accommodation facility, we forwarded to her residential municipality (the municipality which placed her at the facility). The residential municipality is obligated to consider complaints about violations of the rules in regard to coercion. Moreover, we asked the municipality to be informed of the further developments in the case. It turned out that more than half of the coercive measures taken in relation to the girl had not been reported as they should have been according to the rules. After we had forwarded the girl’s complaint, the 47