Bankrupt youth care institution leaves trail of debt and concern
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Youth care institution You Care has been declared bankrupt. For years, so‑called ‘care cowboys’ earned millions housing vulnerable refugees, leaving a trail of debt in their wake. Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Children and the Law, spoke to ‘EenVandaag’.
You Care was established in 2020 on behalf of Nidos and various municipalities. Nidos acts as a guardian in the Netherlands for unaccompanied minor foreign nationals. It paid You Care for shelter and youth care, spending amounts that could amount to €1,000 euros a day for one child. Just two years after it started, the company had already achieved a turnover of nine million euros. According to former employees, however, a large part of that money was not spent on the care and guidance of the young people. Those millions have now disappeared.
'There was clearly financial mismanagement. In a short space of time, the expanded enormously without having its financial affairs in order at all,’ says Mariëlle Bruning, who is shocked by what she has read about You Care in public inspection reports. 'I think it's too bizarre for words that we have youth care providers in the Netherlands who think: there’s money to be made here. The majority of providers are not motivated by profit, but unfortunately we also have “care cowboys” which is very sad.'
It is striking that no steps were taken for such a long time. Neither Nidos nor the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ) took action. According to Professor Bruning, fragmented supervision is significantly to blame: 'We now have thousands of youth care providers who all have contracts through the municipalities. That makes it all the more complicated to monitor quality.'
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Read the full article on EenVandaag (in Dutch)
Read the full article in the Nationale Zorggids (in Dutch)