Minors are increasingly less placed with foster carers, 38% compared to 56% twenty years ago

At the end of 2022, 38% of children placed by Child Welfare Services are being cared for by family assistants, compared to 56% twenty years ago, according to a study by the Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (Dress), the statistics department of the Ministry of Solidarity, reported by France Inter on Tuesday, July 23. Care in specialized establishments represents 41% of placements at the end of 2022. Nearly 21% of children entrusted to ASE are placed in independent accommodation or with transitional solutions in particular.

These children have experienced violence within their families, serious neglect and trauma. They are subject to a placement measure because they need a stable and protective environment to grow up. For Michèle Creoff, vice-president of the Union for Children, a home is not always an appropriate solution: “Doing your homework while you’re in a living unit of 10 to 15 children, sharing a room all the time, having adults gravitating around you, who change. They’re not the same day and night. It requires children to make extremely frequent adaptations that are tiring.”she explains to the microphone of France Inter.

Foster families offer a more individualized and protective framework. But the system is running out of steam. Departments are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit. “We can talk about a profession in crisis. Working conditions have deteriorated. There is less and less latitude. I have known ‘ass-fam’ who did this for 30 years, but today 5 years, 10 years and then we move on to something else because it is too heavy, it is too difficult, it is too poorly paid”explains Delphine Moretti, from the CGT Public Services Federation. “Then, they are often very alone when faced with the difficulties of minors”she adds.

The situation is unlikely to improve. The population of family assistants is ageing and retirements may not be compensated in the future.