Centre for Children in Vulnerable Situations ( CCVS )
Centre for Children in Vulnerable Situations ( CCVS )
Location : Email : info@centreforchildren.be
In 2003, the Rachele Rehabilitation Centre was erected in Northern Uganda by Sponsoring Children Uganda with support from the Service "Peace Building" of the Belgian government (Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation). Guided by Els De Temmerman, this rehabilitation centre organized the support and reception of former child soldiers abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

During this period, the Rachele Rehabilitation Centre documented a lot of highly valuable and rich information regarding (former) child soldiers in Northern Uganda, and the setting up of rehabilitation and reintegration processes for this group. 

In order to prevent the loss of this richness of information on Northern Ugandan (former) child soldiers and the local expertise regarding reception and support of these children when the rehabilitation centre was closed down, Centre for Children in Vulnerable Situations (CCVS) was created in September 2008 with support of the Service Peace Building of the Belgian government. This centre is a unique collaboration between three Belgian universities, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Department of Clinical and Life Span Psychology), Ghent University (Department of Social Work & Social Pedagogy and Department of Special Needs Education) and the KU Leuven (Research group Education, Culture, and Society).
AIMS

The overall aim of the activities of the Centre for Children in Vulnerable Situations (CCVS) is the promotion of the well-being of children living in vulnerable situations. We hereby focus on children living in countries in the South.​

This overall aim is striven for via different specific goals:
First, the development and execution of scientific research, driven by questions and findings coming from concrete practices. Moreover, each study needs to be linked up again with the practitioners’ field, as research needs to support practitioners – and thus indirectly the children and adolescents they are working with. This involves that CCVS pays special attention to the translation of its research findings into concrete recommendations for practice and policies, and to the accessibility of the research results (via, amongst other things, the organisation of conferences with the presentation of study findings in the countries where the studies were executed). Finally, the centre pays special attention in her research activities to supporting the development of local research expertise and capacities in Southern countries, through, amongst others, support of local master and PhD students.
Second, CCVS wants to be an expertise, documentation and training centre regarding psychosocial well-being of children in vulnerable situations in the South. This entails, firstly, the above mentioned aim, in essence building knowledge and competencies through scientific research. Next to this, this aim will be striven for through starting up some own pilot projects in countries in the South. These pilot projects serve following aims: support of further capacity building, realisation of a counselling offer for children and adolescents living in vulnerable situations, and the organisation of diverse sensitization and training initiatives for supporters (out of the formal and informal network) of these children and adolescents.
Centre for Children in Vulnerable Situations (CCVS) is lead by a Board of Coordinators, with representatives of the different universities involved. The current composition of this Board of Coordinators is as follows:
Prof. dr. Gerrit Loots, Department of Clinical and Life Span Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel – co-director CCVS;
Prof. Dr. Ilse Derluyn, Department of Social Work & Social Pedagogy, Ghent University - co-director CCVS; and
Prof. Dr. Lucia De Haene, Research group Education, Culture and Society, KU Leuven - co-director CCVS.

An Advisory Board assembles yearly, with experts and representatives of different non-governmental organisations, supporting organisations and the universities involved.

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