Expertise

Under the umbrella of Dijkstra Expertise in Violence within Relationships, Sietske Dijkstra, Phd, Psychologist, member NIP (Netherlands Institute of Psychologists), with CRBKO registration for teaching, has carried out research, given advice and provided education for professionals  and students of social work who had  or will have to deal with victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, since 1998. She has many cooperative institutions and network partners, both in the Netherlands and abroad. Her CVinternational2023Sietske Dijkstra is added here.

Domestic violence and resilience

She published a Dutch book: Domestic Violence and Resilience in Families. A focus on positions, professionals and the prevention of transmission of abuse (Van Arkel, Utrecht, 2007) which has been used in training and vocational education.

For other publications since 1987 see the Dutch version of her website: www.sietske-dijkstra.nl

Lector domestic violence and interagency cooperation

Dijkstra has worked as a lector at the Avans University of Applied Sciences from 2007 until autumn 2014. See www.expertisecentrum-veiligheid.nl

Committee Samson

She was a member of the committee Samson from 2010 until December 2012. On behalf of the governement the committee was investigating sexual abuse in residential care and foster care since 1945 in the Netherlands.

University Utrecht

In the nineties Dijkstra worked for nearly ten years as a researcher and teacher at the department of Women’s Studies and in Social Sciences, department Communication and Welfare at the University of Utrecht.

In that period she got extensive experience in carrying out biographical research. Her PhD study was on how adults, both men and women were dealing with a childhood of abuse in their relations with partners, children and family of origin.
Other fields of expertise are: children who witness abuse, neglect, children resident in shelters and prevention of transmission and how support and aid systems on domestic violence work.

Recent work

In her most recent work she is involved in the necessary high skilled and refined interdisciplinairy work of dealing with the issue of cooperation in dv cases and handling high conflict divorce. She is assuming that there are different patterns operant, who need a different approach, especially when serious violation is prior to the divorce. She helped to prepare an national work conference on the issue in May 2014 and was one of the key-note speakers.

Last years she has managed several projects aimed at improving cooperation and the exchange of expertise among professionals in order to improve services.

She cooperated on different projects of the Verwey-Jonker Institute on parenting and domestic violence.
She published on tacit knowing and handling domestic violence and on skilful performance.
She was performing in an international master class on domestic violence in Leeds (March 2014).
She was programming two master classes of nine days on handling domestic violence.

She was the project leader of a consortium of partners developing, evaluating and implementing the Flagsysteem Residential Care for the first phase, during her time at Avans (2012-2014).

She was a member of the annual international orientated number of a Dutch Journal on Knowledge on Parenting (2006-2009).

She took the collaborative initiative for the network of the AVG, the Academy for Female professionals against Violence in 2005.