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My publications
foster mother and child; selenite sculpture by Gera ter Meulen

KnowledgeBureau ter Meulen

When organizations make decisions on important items as the lifelong development of adopted and foster children, it is of paramount importance to be optimally informed. Decisions should be supported by state-of-the-art concepts and scientific knowledge. To help to get access to this KnowledgeBureau ter Meulen provides “Knowledge as a service”. This service includes a website with information on scientific articles on adoption and foster care. You can find  articles by clicking 'interesting research' or by translating the Dutch information- which is fortunately easily done by using translation websites. Are you interested in my (Dutch) popularized summaries of recently published research? You can enscribe in the 'Inschrijven Voor de Kennisflits' at the bottom of this page. 
Interesting Research

Press Release of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), October 19th 2022:


De la Court Prize 2022 for Gera ter Meulen. A crowning achievement for unique research on adoption and foster care


De la Court Prize

The De la Court Prize recognises individuals who have carried out exceptional scientific work in the field of social sciences or humanities unpaid and independently, outside the appropriate academic bodies. Gera ter Meulen receives the De la Court Prize 2022 for her research on adoption and foster care. She set up her own scientific knowledge bureau, providing a clever example of how an independent researcher can operate, according to the jury. The award rewards unpaid and independent research outside established academic institutions.  

Scientifically sound and accessible information on adoption and foster care. That is the common thread running through Gera ter Meulen's research. Thanks to her research, this information is available for politics, policy and practice.

 

About Gera ter Meulen

Gera ter Meulen founded KennisBureau ter Meulen in 2017. Before that, Ter Meulen was a researcher and coordinator of the ADOC (Adoption Triangle Research Centre) for many years and also worked in practice as a policymaker. Her bureau makes scientific knowledge on foster care, adoption and residential care accessible. With her Knowledge Bureau, Gera ter Meulen took over the valorisation of knowledge and doing research from the ADOC and still continues this. 

Ter Meulen is a social entrepreneur and does much of her work unpaid. She maintains a database of scientific articles and a website on residential care, foster care and adoption, as well as writing knowledge flashes, blogs, scientific articles and policy responses.

 

Partly because of her connection between science and practice, Ter Meulen's contributions are taken seriously. For instance, she informed MPs and ministers about gaps in the Joustra Committee report on inter-country adoption. Ter Meulen provided insight into what science knows about inter-country adoption. She argued in favour of a scientific section within the Expertise Centre for Adoption and the establishment of a chair on adoption at a University.

 

De la Court Award ceremony

The De la Court Award will be presented on 21 November 2022 during a festive meeting in which we will delve into Ter Meulen's motivation and professional knowledge in the Trippenhuis, Amsterdam.

About the work of Gera ter Meulen

I focus on scientific research on effects of adoption and foster care. Therefore I make inventories of the international scientific literature and translate the most important research into accessible news items. I use scientific information to answer questions from the field and policy through literature research and from my own research in cooperation with Leiden University. Other activities are presentations and courses.
Formerly I was the coordinator of ADOC, Knowledge Centre for adoption and foster care, at Leiden University under supervision of prof.dr. Femmie Juffer. When ADOC stopped in 2017, I continued most of the work as KnowledgeBureau terMeulen.
Examples of my research projects are the studies on the wellbeing and needs of adoptees with special needs, the scientific underpinning of a new method on matching of foster children and implementation study, and the survey on satisfaction with adoption. The research on satisfaction of adult adoptees was commissioned for the EurAdopt Conference on the Relevance of Adoption in 2016  and has been published free access in the journal 'Adoption and Fostering'. 
For China I made an overview of scientific literature why especially for younger children foster care is much more preferable than institutional care. This article gives an overview on developmental processes in children, their brain development, missed development in orphanage care and recovery in family care. It includes some items on the UN Guide for Alternative Care.
For a fostering organization I longitudinally monitored the satisfaction of their foster parents in 2019 and 2021.
In 2019 I organized a study trip for professionals, foster parents and foster alumni to the UK to learn about enhancing stability in foster care.
This resulted in the project Mockingbird NL, in which we explored whether the Mockingbird Family Model, a model in which foster parents support each other in a constellation with an always available experienced foster parent as central hubhome parent, would be an asset to the Dutch fostering situation. In the near future, with subsidies of welfare organizations, the model will be implemented in the Netherlands. I am responsible for developing monitoring and independent research on the implementation.

Most relevant publications


Here is an overview of the most relevant publications I have written. When the publications are freely available, you can open them via the publication link. Some of the publications in English, when they are in Dutch, this is indicated, but can be translated with currently available translation programmes.


My publications
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