EXPERTISE
Our themes
Our themes are topics to which we have long been committed with conviction. They closely match our expertise and often form the basis of projects for which we are asked.
Integrated approach to Severe Mental Illness (SMI)
Residents with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) experience long-term mental health conditions that have a profound impact on daily life. Because these challenges are often accompanied by addiction, debt, housing issues, safety concerns, or social isolation, care and support cannot be effectively provided within separate domains.
In practice, residents with SMI often receive appropriate support too late, are repeatedly referred elsewhere, or only come into view once a crisis has occurred. This places a heavy burden on both the individuals and those around them, and often results in prolonged and costly care trajectories.
The integrated approach for clients with SMIwas developed in response to this urgent need: to prevent people from falling through the cracks by connecting psychiatric treatment and municipal support within a single working method. The earlier signals are addressed jointly and stability is achieved, the greater the chance of recovery — and the lower the risk of crisis, hospitalisation, or long-term reliance on intensive care services.
Integrated family support
In the Netherlands, problems within families often only become truly visible once they have escalated too far. At that point, youth care services step in to support the child. Research and practice both show that we tend to respond mainly to the consequences, while the root causes often lie with the parents or other home-related factors. As a result, youth care often ends up providing short-term fixes, rather than facilitating real recovery where it is most needed — within the family as a whole.
The numbers underscore the urgency. When a large proportion of parents face serious problems and many of them do not receive adequate support, the home environment remains unstable. Children then bear the impact of issues that are not solely their own. As a result, intensive youth care or out-of-home placements are more often deemed necessary — even though some of these situations could have been prevented with timely support for parents.
Integrated family support is therefore crucial: it enables us to address problems at their root, allowing children to grow up safely at home and supporting sustainable recovery for the entire family.
113 suicide prevention
The impact of suicide is profound — first and foremost for loved ones, but also for care professionals, municipal staff, and bystanders. Each year, an estimated 60,000 suicide attempts take place in the Netherlands — an average of 165 attempts per day. Every day, five people die by suicide. Of those who die by suicide, around 40% were in contact with a mental health or youth care organisation, while approximately 60% were not receiving mental health treatment. Suicide prevention is therefore a shared responsibility. It requires vigilance not only in healthcare, but also in people’s everyday environments — among local professionals, in the social domain, in neighbourhoods, schools, and sports clubs. Only together can we create a safety net that recognises warning signs early and makes them open for discussion.
Youth care within the criminal justice framework
Research and practice have long shown that criminal behaviour among young people rarely occurs in isolation. In many cases, it is the result of a combination of factors in the young person’s environment: problems at home, stress or poverty, school dropout, mental health issues, negative peer influence, and (online) temptations. When these factors come together, the risk increases that things go wrong and the young person comes into contact with the criminal justice system.
It is therefore a positive feature of the Dutch juvenile justice system that it has a pedagogical focus: young people are still developing. Interventions aim to encourage positive behavioural change, prevent reoffending, and support reintegration — based on the belief that young people can learn from their mistakes and deserve a hopeful future.
That’s why effectively preventing youth crime and reoffending must go hand in hand with appropriate support and a hopeful future — alongside criminal justice interventions. In practice, however, we see that suitable help for young people is not always available in time. As a result, support often comes too late, problems escalate, and the effectiveness of care or guidance decreases.
The urgency is growing: signals indicate that young people involved in criminal behaviour are becoming younger, and the offences more serious. This calls for an approach that combines prevention, clear boundaries, and future prospects — not just agreed upon at the national level, but especially well organised locally and regionally. It requires clear pathways, shared responsibility, and a focus on interventions that demonstrably make a difference.
Transforming in the social domain
Municipalities are at the heart of a fundamental transformation of the social domain. The challenges are well known: increasing focus on prevention, reducing fragmentation, providing appropriate support close to home, and ensuring financial sustainability. At the same time, municipalities operate in a complex landscape with many societal partners, including care providers, welfare organisations, schools, general practitioners, and local sports facilities.
System transformation cannot be achieved through new policy choices or alternative procurement methods alone. It primarily requires clear direction, shared responsibility, and space for genuine partnership with all societal actors in the field. Municipalities are seeking the right balance: how do you provide direction for change while working collaboratively with partners on the ground?
