Compulsory social measures

The Federal Act on Compulsory Social Measures and Placements prior to 1981 (CSMPA) has been in force since 1 April 2017. Under this act, victims of such measures are entitled to solidarity payments (compensation). Applications for these payments must be submitted directly to the Federal Office of Justice.

Were you subject to compulsory social measures as a child or young person? Were you placed in a foster family or children’s home? Were you a «Verdingkind» sent to live with another family? If so, have you already submitted an application for a solidarity payment to the Federal Office of Justice, or do you intend to do so?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions and are looking for information about what happened in your past, we will be happy to help you to search the archives. We will try to ascertain for you which authorities and homes were involved and will contact them. We try to gather as much information as possible for you. If we find something, we will make copies of the documents free of charge and send them to you.

Please note that this research sometimes takes a considerable time. It can take several weeks or even months until we find information. Unfortunately, our search is sometimes unsuccessful because not all files have been kept.

Would you like us to search for documents for you? If so, please complete and sign the document search request form and send it to us at the State Archive of the Canton of Bern. Please enclose a copy of your ID or passport).