Ahead of its 5 November parliamentary vote, nearly 50 mental health organisations published an opinion to the Brussels League for Mental Health (LBSM) that called on lawmakers to withdraw a bill that would allow authorities to enter private residences to enforce certain removal orders.
The coalition of organisations mainly criticised a provision in the draft bill that would allow judges to order multidisciplinary support when children are present during an operation. In practice, the provision would allow a judge to order a psychologist, which LBSM believes is not properly defined, to be present when a removal is enforced so they can offer reassurance to any children present during the removal.
After the removal, the professional could also then act as a support system to help the children cope with the experience if deemed necessary.
The organisations outlined several objections to these provisions:
- They contradict widely established findings on the links between mental health and emotional ties
- They confuse and distort the missions of mental health professionals
- They contravene the ethical and deontological principles of these professions
- They don't properly account for the mental health of adults
Witnessing the forced removal, or watching "a family member disappear" as LBSM states, could undermine children’s sense of security and damage their ability to build trusting relationships with adults, regardless of whether help is available after the fact. LBSM adds that the Belgian mental health system is already overwhelmed as is, and that measure will only make that strain worse.
While LBSM fully supports and sees the need for providing psychological care to children who experience traumatic events, it opposes integrating that care into a coercive procedure.
"Children need a stable and secure environment, and, except in cases where the family environment itself is abusive, separation from one of the people who constitute their primary emotional support network is always a source of psychological suffering," they write. "Teams of psychologists who work with children separated from their parents can attest to this."
They add that the bill could place mental health professionals in an ethically difficult position that would require them to support children during an operation they might believe is actually causing them unnecessary and preventable psychological harm. LBSM states that they want lawmakers to consider that mental health professionals may appear complicit in a process which they believe would undermine the trust children and families have in institutions and individuals that are supposed to be support systems.
"We object to this support being integrated into the coercive procedure itself and presented as a sufficient guarantee of respect for the child's psychological integrity," they added. "This is a form of greenwashing in the name of public health that we cannot endorse."
The opinion ends by stating that their 'conclusion was obvious' and that their answer for if the legislation should be passed is simple, no.
