Burn the end of dry outings from the Childhood Social Assistance (ASE) at the age of 18, ban the reception of minors in hotels, better remunerate host families: Parliament definitively adopted on Tuesday a draft Child Protection Act, aimed at improving the lot of those in care. The Secretary of State for Children and Families Adrien Taquet said to himself “convinced“that he “will allow children protected by the ASE to prepare for their future, to consider their autonomy more calmly and to fight against these inequalities of destiny”. The text was adopted by 109 votes against 2 and 6 abstentions,
From the incomplete training of personnel to the violence, failures are regularly pointed out in the follow-up of these few 300,000 minors. More than half arefoster children“, in an institution or in host families, the others benefiting from educational actions.
Support after the child turns 18
To support young people aged 18 to 21 who have passed through the ASE, the youth guarantee (which makes it possible to support young people aged 16 to 25 in very precarious situations towards employment or training) will be “systematically proposed”, then the youth employment contract in March. The objective is to facilitate the integration of those who are without employment or training.
They will also benefit from a “right to return” to the ASE in case of need. “advanced” greeted by the collective of child protection associations Cause Majeur! who was concerned that the original project did not provide for any measures aiming to continue supporting ASE youth after their 18th birthday.
Young people leaving the ASE will also be priorities for social housing : currently, a quarter of homeless people born in France are former foster children. But according to Stéphane Troussel, president of the Departmental Council of Seine-Saint-Denis, the state, “in the incantation”obliges the departments to “find their own financial means“. In early January, Emmanuel Macron pleaded for a future “institutional clarification” : “this responsibility (of ESA) must rest with the State”, he had said.
Ban on hotel accommodation for unaccompanied minors
Another key part of the text: in two years, it will be prohibited from lodging protected minors in hotels. “Between 7,500 and 10,000 protected minors are accommodated there today”, unaccompanied foreign minors for the most part, underlines the rapporteur of the text in the Senate Bernard Bonne (LR). Until the ban, minors cannot be accommodated at the hotel for more than two months. In January 2021, a report from the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas) pointed out the “well-identified dangers” incurred by ASE minors staying in hotels: the educators are not there enough and the young people are there close to traffic areas.
The use of the national AEM file (“support for the evaluation of the minority”) will now be compulsory, in order to better identify young people who have filed applications for protection in several departments. A measure criticized by the left. For Socialist Senator Michelle Meunier, that a law on the protection of children includes provisions of “management of migratory flows is not tolerable”.
The criminal records of the supervisors checked
The bill also introduces “strict controls” from adult criminal history (professionals or volunteers) in contact with childrenparticularly in relation to sexual offences.
Reinforcement of training and prevention
Establishments should have a prevention and fight against mistreatment policy.
Better compensation for host families
Family assistants, who take in foster children in their homes, will benefit from remuneration at least equal to the minimum wage from the first child received.
Social services will have to seek to entrust the child to his entourage
The possibility of entrusting the child to a member of his family or to a “trustworthy third party” will be systematically searchedprior to his placement in Child Welfare. siblings will in principle be covered in the same place.
In addition, each child will be offered a sponsorship by volunteersand followed by a “mentor” when entering college.
The children’s judge may replace parental authority for certain authorizations
At the request of the judge, the child may be assisted by a lawyer “when his interest requires it”. The children’s judge may alsoauthorize the person to whom the child is entrusted to exercise acts of parental authority (such as participating in a school trip), without authorization on a case-by-case basis.