Runtime: April 2023 – April 2026
Client: ZonMw
Project description
The murder of Els Borst, the shooting on a care farm in Alblasserdam, the person shouting on Dam Square during Remembrance Day and people walking on the highway. These are all examples of incidents that are classified in the news as involving individuals with disoriented and/or misunderstood behaviour.
People with misunderstood behaviour comprise, however, a far more diverse group of people. The term ‘disoriented behaviour’ was coined by the Dutch police to account for the time they spend on people who did not commit a criminal offence but who do cause nuisance to other people or other people worried about. This heterogenous group consists of people who experience a combination of psychological, social, and/or societal problems. They often fall between the cracks in terms of care and support. This can lead to (experienced) nuisance and safety concerns, both for the individual showing the behavior and for their environment.
Since 2016, various initiatives have been set-up throughout the Netherlands to improve the support for people with disoriented behaviour. From 2019-2021 we evaluated these developments. This formative evaluation showed that improving the support for people with misunderstood behaviour is a wicked challenge that involves various individual, administrative, and organizational tasks at the local, regional, and national levels. Finding solutions is complicated due to the involvement of many interests and perspectives, with different views on both the problem and the solution. Therefore, it was recommended to work on systems aimed at making problems manageable by enabling connections between different layers, professional domains, organizational, and financing structures.
Based on our evaluation, a program was set-up to subsidize the development of cross-domain regional networks. A research project has been launched to guide and study networks in the field of misunderstood behaviour to achieve appropriate support, where complexity is a barrier. The project is called ‘BE-grip’ in Dutch. Within this three-year project, Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management collaborates with a broad consortium of parties including: Kenniscentrum Phrenos, MIND Landelijk Platform Psychische Gezondheid, Verwey-Jonker Instituut, Centrum voor Consultatie en Expertise (CCE), De Nederlandse ggz, VNG, Valente, Movisie, Trimbos, Centrum voor Criminaliteitspreventie en Veiligheid (CCV), and Onderzoeksinstituut IVO.
Through mixed method action research, we investigate what is needed to establish sustainable domain-transcending learning and improvement processes at different levels (from the professional in the neighbourhood to policymakers at the national level), how these processes can be connected, and what governance conditions are required. This knowledge contributes to the establishment of a sustainable learning system that considers various perspectives on how the support system can be connected to the problems that individuals with misunderstood behaviour face in their daily lives.
Team
Project leader: dr. Violet Petit-Steeghs
Contact: vpetit@eshpm.eur.nl
Project members: prof. dr. Hester van de Bovenkamp, prof. dr. Roland Bal, Lizette Krist, MSc.