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Victim support for minors in Flanders
No full textVictimization among minors occurs frequently but remains an underexplored phenomenon in criminological research compared to offending behavior and victimization among adults. Yet, gaining deeper insight into what minor victims need in their recovery process is crucial, as their developmental stage makes them more vulnerable to long-term consequences throughout their life course. However, little is known about the specific needs that minor victims may experience. In addition to the minor's own coping abilities and support from their social environment, professional support plays a significant role in mitigating the negative impact of victimization and fostering recovery. In Flanders, three general victim support services are responsible for assisting victims: police victim support, judicial victim support, and psychosocial victim support provided by the General Welfare Centers. Although an internal evaluation conducted in 2004 indicated that the needs of minors were insufficiently considered within these victim support services, it remains unclear how current practice addresses the support to minor victims. Therefore, this exploratory qualitative study focuses on three central research questions: (1) what needs do minor victims of crime in Flanders experience? (2) how do the three Flemish victim support services assist minor victims? (3) what challenges and good practices exist regarding the support of minor victims in Flanders across the three services? To answer these questions, between January and October 2024, qualitative interviews were conducted with 22 police officers, 12 judicial victim support assistants, 10 psychosocial victim support providers, and 10 minor victims of extrafamilial violence.
Based on the results, five needs were identified (cf. research question one): the need for information, the need for emotional support, the need for safety, the need for recognition, and the need for support from the social environment. These needs are closely interconnected, meaning that meeting (or failing to meet) one need has implications for the others.
The three victim support services each play their own role in supporting minor victims (cf. research question two). In their contact with minors, the police provide initial support by giving victims space to tell their story and by responding to their emotions. Police officers also inform minors and/or their parents about the further course of the police investigation and the legal procedure, and they refer them to psychosocial and judicial victim support. Supporting minor victims of extrafamilial violence is mainly carried out by intervention and reception officers, specialized audiovisual interviewers, and investigators, who operate within their basic police functionality.
Judicial victim support provides support at key moments during the legal procedure and offers information about the course of the procedure and the status of the case. Justice assistants primarily refer victims to first-line legal assistance and psychosocial victim assistance. Since minors lack the judicial capacity to act and cannot perform legal acts, contacts generally take place exclusively with the parents. Only with the consent of the relevant public prosecutor or judge is it possible to involve the minor without the parents.
Psychosocial victim support provides long-term psychosocial support trajectories, focusing on psychoeducation, normalizing feelings, and offering specific tools to address issues directly related to the victimization in the here and now. Psychosocial victim support also provides information about the legal procedure. From the age of six, minor victims are considered full-fledged clients with an autonomous support request. A coaching trajectory can also be initiated with the parents. Victim assistance typically refers minors and/or parents to judicial victim support and more specialized psychological services.
The results further point to several good practices and obstacles regarding the support of minor victims by the three victim support services (cf. research question three). General good practices include centering the questions and concerns of the individual victim when providing support, the referral dynamics between the three services, explicitly indicating in referrals when the minor wishes to be contacted directly, and discussing interagency collaboration during victim support network meetings.
A number of general obstacles related to referral practices were also identified: not all young people who wanted further support or would benefit from it are (timely) referred; the expertise of psychosocial victim support and judicial victim support regarding minors is not always clear to staff of other services; referral is not a common practice for frontline police officers; and contact information for parents is often used for referrals, meaning that the first contact after referral usually occurs with them. Another obstacle is the frequent reliance on parental input for shaping the support without directly consulting the minor. Specific challenges for the police include varying levels of skill among officers in supporting and treating victims, minors' uncertainty about what information they can expect from the police about their case, and the fact that minor victims often experience audiovisual interviews as unpleasant, even though these interviews are intended to prevent secondary victimization. For judicial victim support, specific obstacles include that justice assistants can only contact a minor victim directly without the parents' involvement if permission is granted by the relevant prosecutor or judge, and that minors are often unaware of the role judicial victim support can play in providing information about the case. For psychosocial victim support, long waiting times before a support trajectory can begin after the intake interview may leave victims feeling left behind.
Based on the findings, it is recommended that all three services continue to invest in a proactive, outreach-oriented approach in which support and/or referral options are discussed more than once, preferably directly with the minor. It is also recommended to invest in child-friendly spaces and to provide specific training for the three victim support services on working with minor victims. Furthermore, it is recommended to provide psychosocial victim support with sufficient resources to reduce waiting times before support trajectories begin and to enable all psychosocial victim support services to contact victims again after several months to assess whether further support is needed. To sustainably develop practical expertise, structural knowledge exchange within and between the services is recommended, such as peer learning groups comparable to the 'minor victim learning group' within psychosocial victim support.In addition, it is advisable to support minors in their search for professional support by providing them and their environment with information about available services, by proactively presenting the different support organisations in schools, and by further investing in easily accessible contact points for minors (e.g., schools, youth movements, 'OverKop' centers).
Finally, given the limited knowledge on the needs of minor victims and their help-seeking behavior, further research is generally recommended, both qualitative, quantitative, cross-sectional and longitudinal. For future research to contribute to victim support that meets the needs of all minor victims, it is important to also consider services beyond the three victim support services (e.g., 'ZSG', 'JAC', 'OverKop'), minor victims who do not access professional support services (for any reason), and the opportunities and challenges associated with informal support from the social environment. Specifically for the Flemish research landscape, it is recommended that the Youth Research Platform continues to structurally include victimization and help-seeking behavior in their large-scale and broadly representative youth surveys to ensure that up-to-date statistics remain regularly available.status: Publishe
Indoor Safety of Wireless Power Transfer: A Machine Learning Approach
No full textsponsorship: This work was supported by the Flemish FWO Project (Collaborative Smart Surfaces in Home Materials for Internet of Things Wireless Powering) under Grant G0B9821N. (Flemish FWO Project (Collaborative Smart Surfaces in Home Materials for Internet of Things Wireless Powering)|G0B9821N)status: Published onlin
The influence of kappa-carrageenan, gellan gum, and konjac glucomannan on the structure and physical stability of emulsified gel systems formulated with potato, soy and mung bean proteins
No full textsponsorship: This work was funded by China Scholarship Council and C2 project (Internal Funds KU Leuven) . Quinten Masijn is holder of a Research Flanders Foundation Strategic Basic Research grant (1S29922N, 2021-2025) . (China Scholarship Council, C2 project (Internal Funds KU Leuven), Research Flanders Foundation Strategic Basic Research grant|1S29922N)status: Accepte
Can Divine Foreknowledge Change? A Characteristic Theo-Logical Doctrine of Alberic and His School
No full textsponsorship: Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|12AAT25Nstatus: Publishe
Branch-and-cut-and-price for agile earth observation satellite scheduling
No full textsponsorship: This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72101264, 72431011 and 72421002) , the Science and Technology Innovation Program of the Hunan Province, China (No. 2022RC1241 and 2023RC3008) , the Natural Science Foundation Project of the Hunan Province, China (No. 2025JJ20074, 2024JJ5109r and 2024JJ7098) , the Science and Technology Innovation Team of the Shaanxi Province, China (No. 2023-CX-TD-07) , and the Key R&D Program Projects in the Shaanxi Province, China (No. 2024GH-ZDXM-48) . (Science and Technology Innovation Team of the Shaanxi Province, China|2024JJ7098, Key R&D Program Projects in the Shaanxi Province, China|2023-CX-TD-07, 2024GH-ZDXM-48)status: Publishe
Perceptual Decoupling Underlies Internal Shielding Benefit during Switches between External and Internal Attention: Evidence from Early Sensory Event-related Potential Components
No full textsponsorship: This work is supported by a grant from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) awarded to S. V. (1212721 N) and to L. V. (1242924 N), a grant from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action (101152092) awarded to S. V., and a grant from the special research fund of Ghent University (BOF.24Y.2023.0017.01) awarded to G. P. (Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)|1212721 N, Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)|1242924 N, European Union|101152092, Ghent University|BOF.24Y.2023.0017.01)status: Publishe
How SecB Maintains Clients in a Translocation-Competent State
No full textBacterial secretory proteins must remain soluble and non-folded until they reach the SecYEG translocase. Preprotein intrinsic features and chaperones can delay protein folding. The SecB chaperone is known to delay folding of some proteins, however the link between the folding state of a client and its interaction with SecB, until the client-transfer to the translocase remains elusive. This study unravels how a model client, maltose binding protein (MBP), is kept in a non-folded state by SecB. Using single-molecule FRET and hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry, we describe in detail the folding pathway of the client and demonstrate that SecB acts first as an unfoldase, reverting partial folding and then as holdase, preventing folding. The presence of an SP delays the folding and stabilizes the client to SecB interaction. Single-point mutations that abolish formation of some foldons drastically increase the lifetime of the SecB-bound state. Towards delivery to the translocase, SecA interacts with the MBP:SecB complex forming a quaternary super-assembly thus, further stabilizing the disordered state of the client. Collectively, our study demonstrates the interplay between secretory chaperones and a model client, with SecB combining unfoldase and holdase activities to retain the client in a translocation-competent state while SecA secures this complex until later translocation.sponsorship: We are grateful to A.G. Portaliou for her contributions, including preliminary data collection, guidance in molecular biology, and insightful discussions. Our research was supported by the K.U. Leuven (ZKD4582-C16/18/008 to A.E. and S.K.; and PDM/KULeuven fellow for J.H.S.), the FWO/FNRS Excellence of Sciences (30550343/GOG0818N to A.E.), WoG/FWO (W002421N), and FWO (G093519N and G009423N). (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Research Foundation Flanders)|ZKD4582-C16/18/008, K.U. Leuven|30550343/GOG0818N, K.U. Leuven|WoG/FWO (W002421N), FWO/FNRS Excellence of Sciences|G093519N, FWO/FNRS Excellence of Sciences|G009423N, FWO)status: Accepte
VALID: A checklist-based approach for improving validity in psychological research
No full textstatus: Publishe
Opinie Knack: Friedrich Merz (CDU) heeft de schaduw van Angela Merkel van zich afgeschud
No full textDe partijleiding van de CDU/CSU deelde mee dat Merz met zijn Bondsdagfractie ‘zeer duidelijke moties over het migratie- en vluchtelingenbeleid’ zou indienen. De fractie zou ter stemming overgaan zonder rekening te houden met wie deze moties mee steunt: ‘Dat geldt ook dan wanneer enkel de AfD onze moties mee ondersteunt.’ Een opening naar de AfD dus, met dien verstande dat de ‘Union’ zelf moties indient en niet die van andere fracties zou steunen.status: Published onlin