Flemish Minister of Welfare Hilde Crevits has announced an extra 195 jobs for youth care services as part of an increase in funding for the youth care sector. The Flemish government and the social partners agreed on this as part of the VIA-6 agreement.
Personnel in the youth welfare system have been experiencing a huge workload while the complexity of care requests has also increased, as have social expectations.
"With these measures we will make sure that youth care remains a viable career. The VIA-6 agreement has ambitious goals for our youth services and reducing the workload is one of them," Crevits explained.
The additional funding applies to staff in educational and health facilities and those within public administrations. It will allow for an average wage increase of 4.5%. This will go up to 9.5% for starters and staff with low seniority, in an effort to encourage people to join the profession.
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As well as boosting the number of youth care workers, Flanders also wants to further improve the quality of its services by raising the number of training days and granting the right to three consecutive weeks of vacation. The measures cost around €34.3 million: about €22 million for strengthening the purchasing power of staff and €12 million for quality promotion.
