Risk assessment, Protective factors, Risk screening, Prevention, Risk management, Intervention planning, Violence, Criminality, Aggression, Adult, Young adult, Youth, Child, Forensic psychiatry, Prison, Outpatient care, Community care, Youth supervision, SAPROF, Risk Screener Violence, Risk Screener Youth, Self-assessment

My research interest lies primarily in applied risk assessment of serious externalizing problem behavior, such as violence and criminality, in the interplay between childhood, adolescence and adulthood. I focus on the development of novel evidence-based and empirically validated risk and strength evaluation methods, and the optimization of their implementation in forensic and non-forensic practice. Through this, my goal is to support clinical practice by enhancing intervention strategies and optimizing risk management, to prevent escalation or recidivism. My primary expertise concerns risk screening and the assessment of protective factors for (violence) risk for adults, youth and children. I have (co) developed the Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for violence risk (SAPROF), SAPROF-Youth Version (SAPROF-YV), SAPROF-Child Version (SAPROF-CV), SAPROF-Sexual Offending (SAPROF-SO), Female Additional Manual (FAM), Risk Screener-Violence for prison practice (RS-V) and Risk Screener-Youth (RS-Y). I am involved in implementation and validation studies around these instruments in a wide range of national and international research projects and clinical applications, like the Screen and Intervene (SCIN) study. In addition, I am involved in ongoing developments in this area. For example, multiple-perspective evaluation involving service users, care providers and professionals, through the Risk And Protective factors In Dynamic Screening (RAPIDS) project, providing professionals and clients with an efficient and effective multiple-perspective evaluation method of risk and protective factors for serious externalizing problem behavior.