Supervision of residential facilities is put under the microscope to take better responsibility for vulnerable children and young people

The vast majority of the country's residential facilities work well and help children and young people who, for one reason or another, cannot live at home.

Still, most people will recognise that from time to time, stories of misconduct in residential care appear in the media, from financial crime to outright abuse.

Of course, supervision is carried out, and the supervision is twofold. While it is the responsibility of the municipalities to supervise the well-being of the individual child, it is the regional inspectorates that are tasked with supervising the residential facilities on an institutional-level.

»We don't know a lot about how this division of labour takes place in practice, and to what extent the municipalities and regional supervision coordinate. But if a children and young people's home is approved without remarks, the municipality probably thinks that it is a good place. And the regional inspectorate, on the other hand, may think that we have not heard anything from the municipalities about the children not doing well here, because the municipalities keep an eye on that, so it is probably a place where the children are doing well. In between, there may well be some things that do not come to light,« Matilde Høybye-Mortensen, associate professor at the Research Centre for Citizens and Society Studies at VIA University College, points out.

She is heading a research project that, with support from Independent Research Fund Denmark, will investigate how the municipalities and the regional inspectorates work together.

Inspections are the young people’s safety

The supervision of children and young people's homes and their residents is a safety net for the children and young people to thrive and ensure that the homes are in order. 

However, supervision requires bureaucratic measures, which to politicians smells like red tape, something which take away resources from welfare. An important point for Matilde Høybye-Mortensen, however, is that bureaucracy can be very valuable.

»There is some bureaucracy that actually supports good welfare. These control systems serve a purpose. I hope that our research can make us – as society - better at owning up to our responsibility towards these children and young people who live in residential care. This knowledge can also benefit adults who live in residential facilities,« as she puts it.

The project group will consist of four members. In addition to Matilde Høybye-Mortensen, Associate Professor Lena Kjeldsen from the Research Centre for Social Marginalisation will participate, and two postdocs is to be hired.

The research itself will be a mixture of fieldwork at some of the regional inspectorates and selected municipalities, interviews and reviews of written inspection reports on the housing facilities.

In addition, the research group will try to get the regional inspectorates and municipalities to meet to exchange knowledge. In this way, a common understanding of each other’s work will arise.

New legislation means fewer visits from the regional inspectorates

However, the work will not begin until the summer of 2026. This is partly due to the fact that new legislation has been passed that changes the cadence of the regional inspectorates in relation to visiting the children and young people's homes. In the future, the visits of the regional inspectorates will become more risk-based.

Until now, they have had to visit the individual residential facility at least once a year. From the summer of 2026, on the other hand, the regional inspectorates must carry out risk-based inspections and as a minimum only make visits every three years.

»In principle, this means that they do not have to visit very often. This can be perceived as a deterioration. Others may say that the result is that we primarily use our energy on those homes that has become morally sidetracked. But how do you know who the bad guys are if you don't go out there? The regional inspectorates will therefore probably be more dependent on the municipalities reporting. So, it will be interesting to get that knowledge mobilised. How do we do things in this new setup so that we can learn something from it?,« Matilde Høybye-Mortensen elaborates.

The research is scheduled to run for three years. The hope is that a clear picture will emerge of who is responsible for what among municipalities and regional inspectorates. And how the more risk-based supervision affects the cooperation between the municipalities and the regional inspectorates.

»This also applies all the way down to the caseworker level. In a way that the counsellor also knows what is expected in relation to being responsible for this child who is now placed outside the home. Today, some people assume that once the regional inspectorate has approved a children and young people's home, everything is in order. So, I also hope that the individual caseworker can gain a greater awareness and clarity of what is expected of the person-oriented supervision that he or she has to carry out,« says Matilde Høybye-Mortensen.