Parents and children should be helped to deal with behavioural problems and disappointing school results, and reliance on medication should be reduced, junior health minister Marlies Veldhuijzen van Zanten says in a new briefing to MPs.

The premise is central to the minister’s plans to reform and decentralise youth and family care services, which were sent to parliament on Tuesday evening, the Volkskrant reports.
‘Youth has been turned into a problem over the past few years,’ the minister is quoted as saying. ‘Every problem needs a diagnosis and a label: ADHD, PDD-Nos, dyscalculia to hyper-sensitivity and beyond. If you get a label, the government offers you help. We have to stop this. We have to de-problemise and remove the labels.’
While problems should not be underestimated, we have to learn to live with them, the minister said.
Over-ambitious
In addition, some families are too over-ambitious for their children, she continued. ‘Children always have to score 8 out of 10 when 7 is sometimes good enough. Then children become over-stimulated and too much is asked of them.’
The cabinet’s plans involve decentralising youth care services – currently provided by local authorities, provinces and four government ministries – and giving full responsibility to local councils.
The councils will be given €3bn to organise local ‘centres for youth and family’ where healthcare and other experts will focus on child-related issues. This is €300m below the current budget but the savings will come from the reduction in red tape, the minister says.
Combination
Local councils are the best places to organise this help because behavioural problems are often a combination issue involving, say, debt and housing, the minister said. Problems can also be identified earlier at a local level.
If the minister’s plans get parliamentary approval, the transfer of responsibilities to the local sector should be completed by 2016.
Youth care is the latest in a string of policy areas where the government is transferring responsibility to local councils.