Youth & Family

prof.dr. Loes Keijsers

Well-being of adolescents

My research aims to understand better how environmental factors such as parenting and social media contribute to the well-being of future generations. I also develop eHealth applications to strengthen resilience (GrowIt! App).

prof.dr. Maartje Luijk

Supporting everyday parenting challenges

I study evidence-based parenting support for everyday parenting challenges.

prof.dr. Annemiek Harder

What works in and effectiveness of youth care and special education

My research focuses on youth care and special education: What works, for whom, when, and why? I want to gain more insight into how professionals can better dedicate themselves to achieving success with young people and parents.

prof. dr. Nicole Lucassen

Child poverty

I research the effectiveness of interventions aimed at children and youth growing up in poverty.

dr. Frank van der Horst

Attachment

In my research, I focus on the clinical implications and the history of attachment theory (how early experiences in the relationship with caregivers are essential in developing children's self-esteem and influence the relationships and friendships that a person enters into later).

dr. Joyce Weeland

Effectiveness of prevention and intervention programmes

I study whether prevention and intervention programs effectively prevent or reduce problems in children, adolescents, and caregivers. In my research, I also focus on how, for whom and under what circumstances these programs are effective.

dr. Rianne Kok

Self-regulation and moral development in a social context

I study moral development within the family, with a special focus on lying: how and when do parents lie to their children and does lying also influence children's development? In addition, I investigate why some children find it more difficult to behave according to the norms and values of their family, school and society, and how emotion regulation problems are passed on from generation to generation. For this, I often make use of video observations of behaviour. As an observation expert, I was involved in the development of the Beats portal, a platform to collaborate with video data and annotate videos.

dr. Daphne van de Bongardt

Relational and sexual development and health

My line of research focuses on understanding and improving the relational and sexual health of young people. Using various methods (questionnaires, observations, interviews), I study risky and positive relational and sexual developments and the biopsychosocial factors associated with them.

dr. Amaranta de Haan

Parenting adolescents

From a family system perspective, I examine how mothers, fathers and children interact during adolescence. I focus in particular on the question why parents raise their children the way they do, using both long-term data and intensive longitudinal data (diary data).

dr. Michelle Achterberg

Social behavior and brain development 

My line of research focusses on the nature, nurture and neural mechanisms of social emotion regulation development in childhood and adolescence, using the longitudinal twin study L-CID.

dr. Annabel Vreeker

Determinants of young people’s resilience and psychopathology

In my studies I aim to understand which factors contribute to resilience and risk of psychopathology in offspring with a parent with psychopathology. In addition, I study how we can improve early identification of symptoms, and which interventions we can use to prevent the development of mood symptoms in adolescents at increased risk of psychopathology.

dr. Margriet Lenkens

Young people with delinquent behaviour, use of knowledge from experience

I am researching the use of experiential knowledge of young people in a training course for probation workers. I study the influence of this on communication and empathy.

dr. Ijsbrand Leertouwer

Well-being of adolescents by means of Ehealth

I study methods for assessing reliability and validity of person-specific measurements, collected through experience sampling. Ultimately, these methods will be applied in Ehealth apps used by adolescents

dr. Lisanne Schröer 

Parental socialization of lying in families 

I investigate how children learn to lie. Specifically, I am interested in three possible mechanisms of lying in children: (1) what parents teach their children about lying, (2) the lying of parents that children observe, and (3) a gap between what parents teach their children about lying and what they do themselves.  

dr. Jana Vietze

Belonging and well-being in adolescence

I study how and when feelings of (not) belonging are related to the well-being of youth. Using multiple methods (questionnaires, interviews, diaries), I study how parents, school and peers can support youth in their identity development, feelings of inclusion and belonging.

dr. Jacqueline Schenk

Development and well-being of young people with Down's syndrome, Autism, or just a mental disability

My research focuses on the development and well-being of young people with Down's syndrome, autism or only a mental disability. I want to gain insight into personal and/or environmental factors that influence the development and well-being of these young people, their peers, parents and teachers.

dr. Crystal Smit

Social influences on physical well-being of youth

My research focuses on motivating young people to adopt healthy lifestyles, while taking into account the influence of their social environment. In particular, I focus on engaging social influencers in interventions related to physical well-being.

dr. Marleen de Moor

Genes, parenting and development

My research is about genes, parenting and development of children. Do denes affect how parents raise their children? And how do genes and parenting influence the development of children? I am specifically interested in the motor development of children. I study, among other things, how parents can encourage their children to be more physically active and to develop their motor skills.

dr. Dom Weinberg

Social inequalities and adolescent development

I study how adolescents interact with their socioeconomic environment – such as how they perceive their own socioeconomic position and how they understand the unjust systems and societal structures that maintain and generate social inequalities.

dr. Novika Purnama Sari

Autistic Traits in the general population

I work on the continuous approach to autistic traits either as predictor or dependent variable in order to study to what extend autistic traits correlate with various developmental trajectories and outcomes (e.g. academic achievement, parental age, harsh parenting).

dr. Donna de Maat

Resilience after stress

I investigate why some children and young people experience problems while others function well after exposure to stress. I focus on which characteristics of children themselves and which attributes of their environment contribute to resilience.

dr. Niko Vegt

Co-creation with youth

I develop methods and tools, based on human-centered design, that enables children and adolescents to fully participate in research and innovation projects. In my research I initially investigate the preconditions and ingredients for effective collaboration between youth and researchers.

Emily Tang, MSc

Effectiveness of family-centered treatment in (semi-)residential youth care

I study the effectiveness of involving parents in the treatment of their children in (semi-)residential youth care.

Utilizing quantitative and qualitative methods, I study the question: What works for whom and why in family-centered treatment in (semi-)residential youth care?

Mirthe Verbeek, MSc

Positive psychosexual development and the prevention of sexual- and dating violence

I study the effectiveness of two group counselling programs for male youth in vocational education and boys with mild intellectual disabilities. These programs aim to promote psychosexual health and prevent (experiences with) undesirable sexual behavior.

Anne Bülow, MSc

Parenting adolescents

I study how parenting and adolescents’ well-being are related in the short and long term. In doing so, I use intensive longitudinal data: in which we follow the same subjects over a more extended period and study them using experience sampling or daily diary methods.

Savannah Boele, MSc

Parenting adolescents

I study the dynamics between parenting and adolescent well-being. In my research, I focus on how and why families differ in their dynamics.

Milou Lünnemann, MSc

Violence in families

I research the intergenerational transmission of violence in families. My focus is on internalising and externalising problems in children and adolescents.

Mehmet Day, MSc

Identity development of young people

My research focuses on the multiple identity development of young people (16-24 years) with a second and third generation migration background. How do young people deal with the different partial identities they have (coherence/conflict), and how can educators and professionals support young people in this process.

Eline Doelman, MSc

Effects of an enforced youth protection measure

I investigate how forced youth protection measures contribute to the protection of children in domestic violence cases compared to voluntary help.

Ildeniz Arslan, MSc

Long-term predictors of better well-being

I study the development from childhood to young adulthood from a positive psychological perspective, with the central question: What are possible long-term predictors of better well-being? I focus on child and environmental factors (behaviour, personality, upbringing, parent-child relationship) that can contribute to a positive, happy and healthy future.

Lysbert Zeinstra, MSc

(Complex) trauma within families with multiple problems

I study the effectiveness of an innovative treatment program for traumatized children and parents in multiple problem situations.

Emma Roza, MSc

Lying in families

I study bidirectional patterns in lying of parents and children. In addition, I investigate whether parental lying predicts (positive or negative) developmental outcomes for children.

Ines Lucieer, MSc

Lying in families and children’s moral development

I investigate the effect of parental lie-telling on children. Using a self-developed questionnaire, I conduct research into “Parental moral dissonance” (the gap between what parents think and what they teach their children about lying). Specifically, I investigate which parents express moral dissonance and how this relates to several child outcomes, such as lying and the social-emotional and behavioral development.

Dominique Troost, MSc

Child poverty

I study the effectiveness of interventions aimed at children and adolescents growing up in poverty. In my research, I examine the experiences of professionals as well as those of families and children themselves.

Rick van Logchem, MSc

My research is aimed at co-creating and evaluating personalized interventions tailored to the needs of individual families to strengthen parental support and improve adolescent well-being.

Céline Henneveld, MSc

Parental support & adolescent well-being

I study whether support of parents can not only promote adolescent well-being but also undermine it.

Asli Gulmus, MSc

Project Manager Convergence ProtectMe & PARADOx

As a project manager, my role involves assisting researchers with non-research related activities like stakeholder- and project management. This allows researchers to concentrate fully on their areas of expertise and accomplishing their research objectives. By doing so, the likelihood of project success and its subsequent impact are significantly enhanced.