With institutionalization, problems begin when admission ends.

Almost 30% of children and young people living in institutions require mental health services, and problems worsen when they leave care, including cases of imprisonment, drug addiction, homelessness or suicide. Because what happens in childhood does not stay there.

There were 2,228 children and youth entering the foster care system in 2022, an increase of 19% from the previous year. According to the report “Annual profile of the reception situation for children and young people in Portugal”, there were 6,347 minors in the system that year, 84% of whom were in institutions.

On average these children and young people stay in residential care for almost three and a half years, but a high percentage (21%) stay for six years or more.

In the case of Miguel Pinto (not his real name), it was his entire childhood and youth, since he entered the institution “when he was 1 year old”, with a brother of 2 years old and another 4 years old, taken by his father due to the lack of economic conditions for care for the children.

He has “very good memories” of this institution, which he always saw “as a home”: “Here I walked and talked. I grew up there, it was my life, my family.”

Miguel says his father always visited his children, but his mother visited him only three times. About two years after his father’s death and a year before Miguel turned 18, his mother asked the court to allow her son to live with her.

“At the time it seemed like the most convenient thing to do, but then I regretted it,” he admits.

He recalls that their relationship was “never very close” and that he felt like a “bastard son” due to his poor relationship with his stepfather. Until one day he was “kicked out onto the street” and was left “to live homeless.”

To “be able to at least support himself,” he placed cars in different areas of Porto and eventually “entered the world of drugs,” using drugs for about two years until someone helped him find housing. He later found a job and from then on began to “get my life in order.”

João Pedro Gaspar worked in foster care for about 25 years when he realized that “the needs were greater outside the foster home.”

That’s why he created the Platform for Supporting (Formerly) Accommodated Young People (PAJE) to support transition and aftercare when young people leave institutions.

According to the CASA 2022 report, “more than half of children and young people in care are in adolescence or adulthood.”

He adds that 79% of youth over 15 years of age are in foster care and that this age group has more behavioral problems.

The PAJE President also highlights other alarming data, such as regular mental health support for 38% of all children in care, mental health care (27%) or medication treatment (28%).

“The problems don’t go away when they reach adulthood or leave foster care because what happens in childhood doesn’t stay in childhood but stays with us for life,” he warns.

Without someone to help overcome “some sentimental bruises, the difficulties are truly enormous,” he argues.

PAJE, established in 2016, works across “three pillars”: employment, housing and mental health support. But it is also fighting for legislative changes that could change the lives of these young people. One of them – “the most recent and perhaps the most influential” – provides for the right to repentance.

Juliana Oliveira was one of those who inspired João Pedro Gaspar’s proposal to parliament.

After some initial pain, she realized that being institutionalized between the ages of 15 and 18 was her “greatest luck.”

Between the ages of 18 and 20, she returned to live with her aunt, who had taken her in between the ages of 13 and 15, but her aunt’s health problems left her without stable family support and her desire to continue her studies was in question.

I was finishing 12th grade and about to start work when PAGE came up in a conversation with the school psychologist.

“With some difficulties from PAJE, I managed to return to my shelter, but on the other hand (…), I managed to enter a shelter dedicated to mental health, despite the fact that I was physically in the shelter,” said Juliana .

To do this, it was necessary to “upend the system”, since the legislation in force at that time did not allow a young person who asked to leave (which can happen from the age of 18) to later regret it and return to the reception system.

“I realized from one or two cases that we don’t need to circumvent the law, we need to change it, and that’s why we insisted,” said João Pedro Gaspar.

From January 1, 2024, it became possible for young people to return to the system, subject to study or internship, up to a maximum of 25 years of age.

Important support because, “despite having some tools to fight for the future,” Juliana knew that by not returning to foster care, her “goals would remain in the long term.”

For Karina Figueiredo (not her real name), who was welcomed for 15 years and left the system nine years ago, “the issue of preparation after leaving was a very big disadvantage.”

In his case, he reached an agreement with the institution in which he lived to extend his stay in his first year of college and better manage his departure.

He also remembers all the anxiety of wondering if he’d get a scholarship or what would happen when he graduated from college: “It was always what then, what then?”

At PAJE, João Pedro Gaspar tracks “cases that went wrong” where young people formerly in shelter ended up homeless, with mental health and addiction problems, in prison. There are even cases of suicide attempts.

The PAJE president says it is from young ex-prisoners in custody that he receives the “strongest and most emotional hugs” as in many cases the association is their “only visit” to them in prison.

“I spent two years and three months in prison and PAJE played an important role because it gave me moral support. It helped me psychologically,” says Miguel, who feels hurt and alone.

Joao Pedro Gaspar says he continues to look at all these young people as children and “as victims of family and society.”

Just like the Social Security Institute, whose responsible officer in the CASA 2022 report recognizes the need to protect and monitor young people leaving foster care.

According to the report, of the 989 young people aged 18 years and over who left the foster care system, 61 cases were identified in which “the natural living situation in which the young person lives may have been changed to the extent of placement”, which “reflects greater vulnerability young people in foster care.”

There were 2,250 children and young people leaving the foster care system in 2022, 1,469 of whom were aged 15 or over.