Letter to the editor. Inhumane to close the LSS accommodation Safiren

Imagine the following. You eat breakfast. And you have to tell your child that in two weeks your home will disappear. The child must move. No more laughter around the dinner table. No more Friday snuggles in the living room. No more play in the hall. The home disappears and the child will also not get to meet the safe adults who exist in everyday life.

How would your child react? With tears? With screams? With a lot of questions?

Now imagine that you, as an adult, cannot answer some of the child's questions. You will neither be able to prevent their safe point from disappearing nor explain what will happen to the child next. You don't know where the child will move. You don't know which adults will be in the child's everyday life in the future. You don't know what the child's bedroom will look like. But you just know that the child's home is disappearing.

An impossible situation. (So ​​take a break and breathe, surely this would never happen in Sweden, where children's rights weigh heavily?) But it still happens. Right now, actually. For the most vulnerable children we have in Sweden.

Just a few weeks before Christmas, the Inspectorate for Care and Care (Ivo) announced that Stockholm's only home for children with multiple illnesses is to be closed. Five children currently live at Safiren. They must move before November 20.

For those of you who don't know what that accommodation looks like, let me explain. It is like any other home, but adapted to the children's special needs. It is there in the living room that the children watch Friday movies with snacks. It is there in the kitchen that people gather around breakfast in the morning. It is there in the hall that the room is filled with coming home stuff after school.

Of course, it may look a little different. It's not always a backpack with homework. Instead, it can be bags with hand warmers when it's cold, for the child in a wheelchair. It is not always a gym bag, but tube feeding that is unpacked together with crafts that the child has done at school. But it's the same love, the same life, the same game. In a facility like Safiren, children live, whose families cannot have them full-time due to the extensive care efforts required.

Ask me, I know, I was lucky enough to work here. Even though it was a while ago, the same stable management, the same confident business manager and a caring staff group are in place. Because here you enjoy yourself. Within these four walls, children's rights come first. Their needs come first. Their feelings come first. Until now.

The reason why children's homes disappear is political decisions. A few years ago, politicians promised tougher requirements to overcome the fact that criminal networks controlled hvb homes in Sweden. They would also include LSS. So when the criminal record extract was missing from Safiren, Ivo kicked the rear. (Or maybe they clapped their hands, because they got an excuse to shut down an otherwise expensive business?)

Region Stockholm had, on behalf of Safiren, taken extracts from the load register for all its staff. Everything was under control. But they had followed a different set of rules that says excerpts must be deleted after they've been listed. And that means, Ivo believes, that there is no evidence that they have been made at all.

Region Stockholm received warnings that the routine should be tightened. The human resources department made a mistake again. It's obviously not okay. But is the archive miss a reasonable reason to remove a home for five children who require care, around the clock?

Safiren is therefore not closing due to neglect, explains Joonas Terje, Ivo unit manager, in an article in DN. They actually see no flaws whatsoever in the accommodation, for the children. It closes down because, as he says, they don't want to make a difference between business and business. It seems that one must act in the same way against them as against hvb homes suspected to be controlled by criminals.

Yes, because what would it look like if you could actually see that there was a difference between an LSS resident and a private actor with criminal activities? Then Ivo risks losing his legitimacy, says Joonas Terje. And that is apparently the important thing in this matter.

When asked if it is not heartless to close Safiren, Joonas Terje says that "rather free than trapped is not really the way politics is going". In other words, Ivo never had to close down the accommodation. But they still chose to do it. To close down Stockholm's only accommodation for children with multiple illnesses. And take away their home. Their safe point. Their staff.

Where will the children live now, Joonas?