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categories.vir24 March 2026

What VIR did, and what's missing when it's gone

Signaling, matching, reporting — three core functions that will disappear without a successor. Technically it is solvable.

The Referral Index for Youth at Risk had three core functions:

  1. Identification: is this young person also in the picture at another municipality?
  2. Matching: if two professionals report the same young person, they are matched.
  3. Reporting: overview of reports per region.

Not perfect. But it was the only national mechanism for supra-local signaling in youth care.

With the phasing out, these functions will disappear. And no successor has been announced by VWS.

The key question for 42 youth care regions: how do you ensure that a young person who is in the picture in municipality A does not become invisible when he moves to municipality B?

Technically this can be solved. In fact, it can be more privacy-friendly than VIR ever was — without a central database, without BSN exchange. But then you have to start building now.

#socialdomain #youthcare #VIR