Homeless teen:

Provincial councillor defends the authorities’ actions

Symbolic image.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV, stock.adobe.com)

After a teenager was denied help, the responsible Vorarlberg state councillor has now spoken out: there was no system failure.

The case has caused quite a stir: as reported, the Feldkirch district authority's child and youth welfare services refused to help a 16-year-old looking for shelter. The authority told the boy, who had previously lost his place in a shared flat, that he would only be helped once he had decided to lead a "positive life".

The media response was correspondingly strong, and since then the responsible state councillor Barbara Schöbi-Fink (ÖVP) has also been criticized, especially as she remained silent about the case for a long time.

Termination of custody
On Friday, she has now spoken out in a statement. Although the state councillor only commented on the specific case in passing ("It is important for us to ensure a factual investigation"), she defended Vorarlberg's child and youth welfare services as a whole. It should not be allowed to be put in a bad light because of individual cases. For example, an evaluation in 2023 gave public child and youth welfare services a very good report card. In 2024 alone, custody was organized in facilities in 397 cases and placement in foster families in a further 267 cases. Of the 397 minors who were placed in an institution, 6.5% had their custody terminated - partly because the parents took the children back into their own homes.

Schöbi-Fink emphasizes that, as a rule, all possibilities are exhausted to help those affected. Only in extremely rare cases - so-called "border crossers" - does the system reach its limits. However, the termination of care relationships by minors themselves or by the institution is a challenge throughout Austria. "For this reason, we have planned a fireside chat with a recognized expert on this topic."

According to Schöbi-Fink, the impression that homelessness is used by the authorities as an educational method is fundamentally wrong: she is shocked at how the case was reported without knowing the exact background. This compromises the young person and denigrates the work of child and youth welfare services.