In her buddy program, Dr. Lisette van der Meer couples psychology students to people with a serious mental illness. The aim? Stimulate a reconnection with society for service users while at the same time create a learning opportunity beyond the textbooks for students. Mindwise interviewed Dr. Lisette van der Meer and buddy Justin L. Abu Hoof about their experiences.
Stadjers Hand in Hand (SHH) is a community-building project aiming to tackle poverty in Groningen. Yasin Koc (a teacher) and Gido Metz (a student) got enthused by the project through a Master’s course, and became volunteers. “We used our knowledge of social psychology and helped develop the project to become larger and more sustainable.”
At the Department of Psychology of the University of Groningen, two enthusiastic scholars (Marieke Pijnenborg and Lisette van der Meer) focus their research on cognition of patients with psychosis. Both are not only academically very active, but also successful in combining their appointment as a scientist at the University of Groningen with an appointment in the clinical field. Reason enough for Mindwise to invite these two scholars for an interview to learn from their experiences and ideas.