As associate professor Forensic Child & Youth Care Sciences at the department of Child Development and Education at the University of Amsterdam, Hanneke Creemers is dedicated to identify ways to effectively reach youth and families with severe problems, assess their treatment needs and intervene in evidence-based ways.

She started her career at the department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Erasmus Medical Centre, combining diagnostics and treatment in clinical practice with pursuing a PhD on the development of addictive behaviors in youth. For the latter, she participated in TRAILS, a longitudinal, multidisciplinary study on the development of adolescents and young adults.

Over the last decade, Hanneke has specialized in effectiveness studies to examine what works for whom in the care for youth and families with severe problems, who have a reputation of being difficult to reach, to diagnose, to collaborate with and to treat effectively. As a co-promotor and daily supervisor, she has been involved in several large scale (randomized) controlled trials within and outside the juvenile justice context, including trials to assess the effectiveness of:

- Family Group Conferencing ('Eigen Kracht conferenties') in child welfare (Dijkstra, 2019, financed by ZonMw and WODC);

- the Dutch Cell Dogs program (DCD) in juvenile and adult correctional facilities (Duindam, 2021);

- the InConnection approach ('InVerbinding') in youth care (Koper, 2023);

- Forensic Outpatient Systemic Therapy (FAST) in forensic mental health care (van Cappellen, ongoing, financed by ZonMW);

- school-based intervention programs to strengthen the link between (secondary) school and mental health care (van Loon, 2022, financed by NWA).

With a recently awarded grant from KFZ-J, she studies the development of treatment motivation in youth and caregivers in residential Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT). Regarding screening and assessment, an NWA Idea Generator grant and a grant from KFZ-J allowed her to develop and test the implementation and validity of What’s Up?, a virtual reality assessment to measure reactive aggression and its origins in young people in forensic youth care.

From 2015-2021, Hanneke coordinated the clinical master program Forensic Child & Youth Care Sciences, that prepares students for a clinical career as a behavioral scientist practitioner in the forensic youth field. Since 2021, she is program director of the bachelor Pedagogics. She also teaches in these education programs, for instance in the bachelor course “Professionele Opvoeders’ and the master course ‘Forensische Diagnostiek’, and supervises (research) master students in internships and thesis-projects.