Dr. P. E. Veerman

Dr. Philip Veerman, CPsychol.
The Hague, the Netherlands
Cell phone: +31-6-52445222
Email: info@drpveerman.nl
www.childrightsfocus.org

A highly acclaimed, multi-lingual, experienced and chartered psychologist, specialising in forensic psychology, health psychology, and human rights. Proactive academically, has started projects in the Netherlands, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Worked ten years as a forensic psychologist for the Dutch courts (civil and criminal cases, adolescents and adults). An expert in children’s rights, childhood, child protection, (child) trafficking, international human rights, and international cooperation. Has worked with children, adults and families within a variety of different services and multidisciplinary teams.

Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau (Presented by the Secretary of State for Security and Justice, January 2015 at the Peace Palace in the Hague at the International Conference on Child-Trafficking).

KEY ACOMPLISHMENTSFrom 2019 on working as the senior psychologist of the Youth Intervention Team (JIT) in the Hague, where he is working with adolescents and young adults who are homeless or live in the protected living facility (JIT Wonen) or with young people with a migration background (and are living at the Coliving protected living facility).
Appointed as project-leader by the guardianship organisation NIDOS in the Netherlands, a project promoting interagency cooperation against child trafficking. Coordinated many bilateral meetings with the Coordinating Prosecutor, the Police, the immigration authority, the mental health organisation providing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and the organisation having responsibility for a Safe House etc. This networking resulted in better communication methods between the organisations and services.
Appointed as a member of a Grievance Committee (a Judge, a MD and a psychologist) for eight municipalities in the Netherlands in the Province of North Brabant.
Created visionary document for Bouman Mental Health Organisation in Rotterdam, assisting outpatient clinics and a clinic for adolescents addicted to alcohol, drugs, gaming or gambling. This lead to information and services being rolled out within the community and schools.
Lead an International Interdisciplinary Working group on the Ideologies of Children’s Rights. This led to initiating the International Journal on the Rights of the Child, currently on volume 26 (publisher is Brill in Leiden and Boston).
Appointed as the Executive Director of Defence for Children International Office in Israel. This was a pioneering project, where lawyers were recruited and appointed enabling all minors to be represented from the Public Defender. Personally trained several lawyers who later became Juvenile Judges and one Arab Lawyer became a District Court Judge in Jerusalem. Palestinian Lawyers were also employed on a retainer to represent minors in the military courts. This led to Civil-Society joint projects of DCI Israel and some Palestinian NGO’s. Palestinian lawyers were trained in juvenile justice-issues in a joint project.
Has been for 5 years the President of the International Executive Council of Defence for Children International in Geneva.
Initiated “normal houses in normal streets’’ venture, which was a residential setting for emotionally disturbed children in the Netherlands. The project set in motion a lot of changes in the Dutch child welfare field.
Visited Freetown in Sierra Leone during the Civil War and helped to launch a section of Defence for Children International which contributed in the fight to stop employing child soldiers and their rehabilitation.
Was a member of the London based Steering Committee of the Coalition against the Use of Child Soldiers (Now called Child Soldiers International).
Wrote “The Rights of the Child and the Changing Image of Childhood” (Marinus Nijhoff publishers, Leiden, London, Boston. 1992).
Has been Fulbright Lecturer and Research Fellow at Columbia University in New York.

List of publications >
Work History >