This report describes the results of the interviews that were held with professionals, policy makers, and researchers (working in the field of sexuality and/or residential and foster care) in three countries in order to answer the following question: ‘Which competencies (i.e. knowledge, skills, and attitude) do professionals working in care need in order to support healthy sexual development of young people in care? Chapter 3 describes the characteristics of young people growing up in care. Young people in care are generally more vulnerable than their peers living in normal families since they have grown up in unsafe family environments. They are often insecurely attached, have a lack of positive role models and positive sexual experiences, have not grown up with clear norms and values concerning sexuality, have low self-esteem and little knowledge about (healthy) sexuality. This set of characteristics makes them more likely to cross their own boundaries and that of others and to make unhealthy choices with regard to sexuality. Therefore, young people in care have special needs with regard to sexuality that professionals working in care should know about and act upon. To meet the special needs of young people in care, professionals should create a safe environment and be there for the young people, in order to make them feel safe and secure again. In addition, they should act as positive role models, set boundaries, help young people to gain self-confidence, and give them space to have positive sexual experiences and to discover their own norms and values. Professionals working in care should provide sexual education that supports young people in their knowledge, skills, and attitudes concerning sexual development and teaches them to make wise and responsible decisions for themselves. Professionals need to put aside prejudices about boys and girls and treat them equally. Chapter 4 describes opportunities to start a conversation with young people in care about sex, intimacy and relationship and what professionals should teach foster parents. Opportunities to start a conversation with young people in care are: 1. When one of the boys or girls spontaneously starts to talk about sexuality; 2. When young people have discussions about boyfriends, girlfriends, or sex. 3. When young people watch clips on social media in which sexuality plays a role. Important topics to discuss are: healthy sexual behaviour, relationships, wishes, boundaries, making your own decisions, changing behaviour after regretting something, norms and values, and social media. Professionals working in foster care should teach foster parents that: 1. It is their task to speak about this topic with their foster child; 2. They should already start talking about this topic to toddlers; 3. It is normal to have difficulties talking about this topic; 4. They should not only speak about the risks of sex but also about sexual pleasure, desire, love, and respect. Chapter 5 describes the personal characteristics and general competencies that professionals working in care should have in order to support the sexual development of young people in care. These are: 1. Have a high degree of self-awareness concerning their own limits, norms and values, and how this influences the way they work, 2. Know that norms and values are dependent on time and culture, 3. Treat children, young people, and parents with respect, 4. Have a good sense of professional judgment, 5. Feel responsible for one’s actions, 6. Have knowledge about trauma theory. Chapter 6 describes what organisations can do to support healthy sexual development of young people in care. Organisations can do the following on the organizational level: 1. Provide structural resources for training and reflection, 2. Create a safe environment and reflective culture, 3. Create diversity among team members, 4. Create access to experts on the topic of sexuality, 5. Pay attention to competencies during hiring processes, 6. Have organisational and institutional policies on the topic of sexuality, 7. Have organisational structures and tools to support relationships and conversations with young people.Chapter 7 describes factors at the professional, organisational, and societal level that may contribute to sexuality-related difficulties in both residential and foster care. Some of these factors are not specifically related to residential or foster care, such as low self-efficacy of professionals, insufficient time for reflection and negative media influences. Other factors are specifically related to residential care, such as having insufficient possibilities to experiment with sexuality (in residential care) and fear of foster parents being accused (in foster care).
This article discusses some characteristics of the educational framework of the programme and tries to compare the results of the programme as reported by graduates with the 'professional competencies for Sustainable Development’, as formulated by DHO (the organisation for Sustainable Higher Education in the Netherlands). Because of the strong international character of the programme (students from more than 50 different countries in all continents of the world graduated since 1996), a specific issue of concern is the applicability of the Dutch Sustainable Competences in an international setting, and the implications for the teaching and learning approach. The experiental learning theory and the learning styles as defined by Kolb (1984) and the cultural dimensions as described by Hofstede (2009) are used to check this. Results from short online interviews with graduates all over the world illustrate the results of this comparison.
MULTIFILE
Dutch National Sports Organizations (NSFs) is currently experiencing financial pressures. Two indications for this are described in this paper i.e. increased competition in the sports sector and changes in subsidy division. Decreasing incomes from subsidies can be compensated with either increasing incomes from a commercial domain or increasing incomes from member contributions. This latter solution is gaining interest as a solution for the uncertainties. Many NSFs have therefore participated in a special marketing program in order to enlarge their marketing awareness and create a marketing strategy, in order to (re)win market share on the sports participation market and gain a more stable financial situation. This paper introduces my research related to the introduction of marketing techniques within NSFs and the change-over to become market oriented. An overview of existing literature about creating marketing strategies, their implementation, and market orientation is given. This outline makes obvious that the existing literature is not sufficient for studying the implementation of marketing techniques and market orientation within NSFs. Therefore, it shows the scientific relevance of my research. The paper concludes with the chosen research methodology.
Events play an increasingly big role in our society. Whereas events were mainly considered entertainment in the past, the social function of events is becoming more and more apparent, in particular, in the field of social bonding and in creating a feeling of solidarity.During an event, visitors identify with a theme or topic, and interact with each other about it. Thanks to social media, they can continue these interactions online, which leads to a hybrid network of individuals sharing the same interests. Eventually, this may lead to forming new communities, who communicate with each other both online and offline. However, it is not clear yet how exactly these new communities are being created.This PhD research studies the online and offline interaction rituals of various events and online communities. Through interviews and participating observations at events such as Redhead Days and the Elfia fantasy event, processes are mapped out that result in forming communities at and around events.Partner: Tilburg University
-Chatbots are being used at an increasing rate, for instance, for simple Q&A conversations, flight reservations, online shopping and news aggregation. However, users expect to be served as effective and reliable as they were with human-based systems and are unforgiving once the system fails to understand them, engage them or show them human empathy. This problem is more prominent when the technology is used in domains such as health care, where empathy and the ability to give emotional support are most essential during interaction with the person. Empathy, however, is a unique human skill, and conversational agents such as chatbots cannot yet express empathy in nuanced ways to account for its complex nature and quality. This project focuses on designing emotionally supportive conversational agents within the mental health domain. We take a user-centered co-creation approach to focus on the mental health problems of sexual assault victims. This group is chosen specifically, because of the high rate of the sexual assault incidents and its lifetime destructive effects on the victim and the fact that although early intervention and treatment is necessary to prevent future mental health problems, these incidents largely go unreported due to the stigma attached to sexual assault. On the other hand, research shows that people feel more comfortable talking to chatbots about intimate topics since they feel no fear of judgment. We think an emotionally supportive and empathic chatbot specifically designed to encourage self-disclosure among sexual assault victims could help those who remain silent in fear of negative evaluation and empower them to process their experience better and take the necessary steps towards treatment early on.
Zowel binnen als buiten de paardensector is de aandacht voor paardenwelzijn aan het toenemen. Dit blijkt uit one-issue topics als aandacht voor toegang tot water in periode van droogte en meer activistische aandacht voor bijvoorbeeld excessen in de springsport. De Nederlandse paardensector heeft veel draagvlak in de maatschappij en wil dat behouden. Ontwikkelingen als een Keurmerk Paarden Welzijn worden breed gedragen in de georganiseerde paardenhouderij. Echter, de paardenhouderij is niet volledig georganiseerd en het beoordelen van paardenwelzijn wordt niet altijd objectief gedaan wanneer het dezelfde paardensector is die het welzijn van de paarden moet waarborgen. De praktijk vraagt om een onafhankelijke expertraad voor paarden die advies kan geven over paardenwelzijn gerelateerde onderwerpen. Stakeholders binnen of buiten de paardensector (maatschappelijke organisaties / NGO’s) kunnen dit advies bij de raad aanvragen. De organisatie en inrichting van de onafhankelijke expertraad voor paarden is de onderzoeksvraag van dit KIEM-2021 project. Eerste uitgangspunt voor een advies is dat de leden het advies geven op basis van (wetenschappelijke) feiten en hun eigen (internationale) expertise bezitten. Overige eisen zoals: organisatiestructuur, inbedding in of een nieuwe plek in de paardensector en werkwijzen worden beantwoord door het KIEM onderzoek. Het onderzoek wordt uitgevoerd door middel van interviews met verschillende stakeholders zowel binnen als buiten de paardensector.
