Child social workers divided over solo sailor Laura

Utrecht city council social workers have asked the family court in Middelburg to lift the care order on would-be round the world sailor Laura Dekker, the Volkskrant reports on Tuesday.


However, the national child protection council Raad voor Kinderbescherming wants the court to keep Dekker under state supervision for another year, the paper says.
The mixed message application was made at a closed-door hearing on Tuesday afternoon. If the court agrees to lift the supervision order, Dekker will be free to start on her record-breaking voyage.
Conditions
Utrecht child protection officers said at the last hearing in early June they did not think Dekker was ready to undertake the two-year voyage. In the meantime, the girl has made arrangements to continue her education while sailing and has completed other requirements laid down by the court, a spokesman told the Volkskrant.
Dekker’s lawyer Peter de Lange told AP earlier she has obtained a first aid diploma and practised functioning while sleep-deprived. Last month, she sailed solo to England and back — 22 hours each way — to show her command of her small yacht and its seaworthiness, AP said.
The family court will decide next Tuesday whether the girl should remain under court supervision.
Mother

Last weekend, the girl’s mother Babs Müller wrote an open letter in the AD calling on the authorities to allow her daughter to make the trip. She described the child protection bodies as ‘criminal organisations’ which want to break her daughter’s spirit.
Müller, who is divorced from Dekker’s father, had been opposed to the trip.

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