Leren van het verleden voor het heden: Een dossierstudie naar de rechtvaardiging van jeugdbescherming in de praktijk

Abstract

This PhD thesis studies the justification of child protection. Legal justification of child protection refers in this research to the substantiation of the need for a family supervision order, with or without placement into care. Two different parts of the decision making process in child protection cases have been analysed. First of all, the report of the Child Protection Board that is part of the request to the court to impose a family supervision order. And second, the written judgment of the Youth Court judge concering the requested child protection order by the Child Protection Board. This research can be divided into three parts. In the first part the child protection legislation that applied in 2013 and 2014 is described. The principles and criteria that are described form the basis for the analysis of the reports by the Child Protection Board and the Youth Court judgments in the second part of this thesis. The second part concerns an emperical study focusing on the application of child protection law in practice. Important legislative amendments with regard to the child protection legislation came into force on the first of January 2015. This led to a significant shift of the legal conditions for the family supervision order and the discharge of parental authority. Also on the first of January 2015 a new Youth Act came into force. With both legislative amendments, the legislator aimed at a more effective and efficient system of youth care and child protection. The purpose of the third and last part of this thesis is twofold. In the first place, to provide a general description of the changes that have been made to legislation and policy that are relevant to this study. Secondly, the results of the emperical research focusing on the justification of child protection in 2013 and 2014 were used to reflect on the most important changes in legislation and policy since 2015.