’s Heeren Loo Zorggroep and University of Groningen cooperate in academic workplace

Researchers from the University of Groningen and care professionals from ’s Heeren Loo Zorggroep (an organization that provides care and support for people with special needs) are to work together in an academic workplace. The partners intend to carry out joint research into issues concerning the care available to people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities.

Over the next five years, researchers from the Department of Orthopedagogy of the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences of the University of Groningen and ’s Heeren Loo Zorggroep will be pooling their expertise and facilities to enable care professionals and academic researchers to conduct fast and efficient research. This is the second academic workplace for ’s Heeren Loo Zorggroep, which also embarked on a partnership with VU University Amsterdam in 2011.

’s Heeren Loo Zorggroep and the University of Groningen have already spent the last ten years working closely to improve the quality of personal and social education and support for people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. ’s Heeren Loo Zorggroep has built up a wealth of experience with people with disabilities of this type over the past decades.

Primary aim

The primary aim of the academic workplace is to professionalize the personal and social education and support offered to people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities so that the care provided corresponds with their individual wishes and requirements. In concrete terms, this will entail five research projects over the next five years, leading to four PhDs from pre-defined projects. Academically trained care professionals from ’s Heeren Loo Zorggroep and researchers from the Department of Orthopedagogy of the University of Groningen will work together on the various research projects.

's Heeren Loo Zorggroep provides care and support to people of all ages with minor to profound (and multiple) intellectual disabilities, throughout most of the Netherlands. The care on offer is diverse and made-to-measure, varying from a few hours of care/guidance for clients at home to daily intensive 24-hour residential care, and from respite care to day care activities and supervised workplaces.

More information: Prof. Carla Vlaskamp