Child protection: ensuring safety and equity beyond all circumstances

Child protection aims to ensure children’s fundamental needs, safeguard their safety, and uphold their moral well-being regardless of circumstances. In France, this international principle is entrusted to the Child Welfare Service (Aide Sociale à l’Enfance, ASE), which supports approximately 330,000 children each year.

Divided among child care homes, nurseries, or various living and reception centers, these thousands of young people—many from disadvantaged backgrounds and less-educated parents—must rely on the state to ensure their physical, emotional, intellectual, and social development and the respect of their rights until they reach adulthood.

What does ASE do ? 

The mission of ASE is to assist “children in danger.” According to the ODAS (Departmental Observatory of Social Action), there are about 100,000 “children in danger” in France. These include all “at-risk” and “abused” children under the care of ASE or the Justice system. An “at-risk” child is one who faces conditions that may endanger their health, safety, morality, or education but is not necessarily “abused.” The latter category pertains to any “child who is a victim of physical violence, sexual abuse, mental cruelty, or severe neglect with serious consequences for their physical and psychological development.”

To provide the most appropriate support for these minors with uncertain futures from a young age, ASE is organized primarily around three main areas, with implementation varying according to the urgency of the minor’s situation:

1. Prevention :
   ASE implements awareness programs to inform concerned parties (families or legal guardians) about minors in danger or at risk. This preventive measure involves collective actions to prevent the marginalization of certain young people and their families, facilitating their integration.
2. Protection :
   ASE may provide educational or financial support to help minors remain in their family environment. These measures, representing 47% of ASE’s actions, are protective in nature, both materially and psychologically.
3. Placement :
   Only if necessary, ASE or a third party may report a case of a child in danger, “at-risk,” or “abused.” In this specific context, the issue of placing the child arises, which concerns 53% of ASE’s measures.

The primary goal of this service is to protect the child and enhance family competencies. The measures applied must be perfectly proportionate to each child’s situation.

Who is under ASE’s protection and to what extent ?

Children under ASE’s care are more often boys (56% according to the National Child Protection Observatory) and are mostly aged between 11 and 17 years.

Nearly 180,000 children, adolescents, and young adults are hosted by the institution: less than half in foster care and more than a third in institutions or autonomous housing managed or funded by ASE. To adapt the measures for each child, a report is made annually concerning their situation. This report helps evaluate and decide whether to end or continue the placement.

Since the late 1990s, there has been a significant increase in ASE beneficiaries, according to a report by Drees (Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation, and Statistics). This concerning rise is mainly due to an increase in placement measures (+5.4% in 2018), largely driven by changes in protection mechanisms (2007 Child Protection Law) that introduced the concept of “concerned information.” These “concerned information” elements are significant for assessing the child’s (family, financial, psychological) situation and ensuring rigorous monitoring if they are placed. The subjectivity of this notion, encompassing a multitude of factors, has led many children from different situations to be classified as needing placement.

ASE confronted with the health crisis: A significant mobilization despite limited resources

For over a year, people under thirty have been on the front lines of the pandemic, enduring the impacts of an unprecedented crisis. Disadvantaged youth are not spared (see our article on the subject), nor are those under ASE’s care. This extremely difficult period has seen less regular monitoring for more than four out of five children. According to a Drees report updated on March 4, 2021, only 10% of ASE establishments have been able to continue home visits for all these children.

Additionally, medical and psychological care has been interrupted in a quarter of ASE establishments, according to Drees. The implementation of health protocols has had consequences on this already vulnerable youth, primarily due to reduced staff responsible for the care of protected children: this is the case in half of the educational action services, according to a Vie Publique media survey.

There are also difficulties for these establishments in adhering to barrier measures: seven out of ten structures reportedly lack enough masks for all the young people, and nearly half of the establishments report a shortage of equipment for overstretched staff.

Finally, maintaining and monitoring distance learning has also been jeopardized since the start of the crisis. With the shift to remote education, ASE students have had to share a limited number of computers, averaging four computers for eleven students, according to Le Parisien (learn more about Break Poverty’s computer distribution day).

Break Poverty’s Support for ASE Children in France

To address this major challenge, Break Poverty has committed significantly to combating the digital divide and the threat of school dropout among the most vulnerable youth. Last spring, nearly 17,000 computers were urgently delivered, mostly to ASE children who had abruptly lost all connection with school due to confinement and lack of home computer equipment.

In September, Break Poverty continued its mobilization with the Réussite Connectée Operation, a program that provides not only computers but also internet connections and one year of mentoring to support and assist in their education and build their self-confidence.

On February 22, Break Poverty teams visited the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA) region to equip as many disadvantaged youth as possible in the Alpes Maritimes (learn more about the event here): in a single day, 65 young people aged eleven to eighteen under ASE’s care were integrated into the Réussite Connectée program and received their computers and internet equipment in the presence of Secretary of State for Childhood and Families, Adrien Taquet. Each of these young people will receive one year of mentoring, deemed “absolutely essential” by the Secretary of State.

Photo Credit: Eric Mathon for Break Poverty, during the computer distribution in PACA.