Lies Van Nuland

Lies Van Nuland
Country: Belgium
Email: lies.vannuland@signsofsafety.net
Languages: English, Dutch
Licensed Signs of Safety Trainer 🔵
Lies has been working for almost 20 years with children, young people and under-privileged families. She gained experience as a social worker and as a manager in various cities and youth work organizations in Flanders. Then she went to work as a youth protector at Bureau Jeugdzorg Amsterdam. She learned that families with a network are more motivated to work on the safety for their children when you focus on their strengths and possibilities and on the other hand they appreciate that you are honest with them about the unsafe moments for the children. Youth Care Agency's belief in Lies’ abilities led to a promotion into a senior role. She gave training to her colleagues in the use of FFPS (Functional Family Parole Services) and GGW (Generic Family-oriented Working). This made her discover that leading supervision and being coached to learn more was very energising.
She then used this experience in the regional staff of the agency Opgroeien, where she supported youth protection workers and different teams. In 2014 she became very interested by Andrew Turnell's Signs of Safety training. Lies helped shape the implementation of Signs of Safety, which OSD opted for in 2015 with a great deal of enthusiasm. A great learning opportunity presented itself when she was also able to work with many families as a youth protection worker in juvenile court with the second highest caseload in the world (after Japan). She combines this function with the implementation of Signs of Safety in her own team because you can only make a difference in the long term for children and their families when Signs of Safety is implemented in all facets, at all levels.
In January 2021 she started to work part-time as a social worker in a private agency in Ghent, De Cocon, working on Safety Planning in Signs of Safety.
With all her experience, Lies knows better than anyone that a solid partnership between different organizations is of the utmost importance to make a process for children and young people a success. From her role as trainer she wants to help shape this with all her enthusiasm and know-how.