New Professor of Special Chair in Social Work

Tilburg University has appointed Prof. Dr. Tine Van Regenmortel for five years as professor in the special chair Social Work, financed by the Foundation Social Work. She succeeds Prof. René Schalk, who held the chair for the first five-year term. Together they set up and designed Tranzo's Academic Workshop Social Work, Van Regenmortel in the role of coordinator.

The research agenda of the Academic Workshop Social Work, which links science and practice, focuses on the paradigm of empowerment for tackling social exclusion and the implementation of modern care. The focus on socially vulnerable groups (people living in poverty, vulnerable young people, the homeless, the elderly, people with a mental health problem, people with a disability, etc.) is a key element of the project. ) is an important theme in this context. In the second term of the chair and the Academic Workshop Social Work (2019-2024), explicit attention is paid to the theme 'poverty and debt' and the measurement of empowerment.

Tine Van Regenmortel is an authority in both the Netherlands and Belgium in the field of empowerment and its translation into practice, policy and research. She has extensive experience in academic, policy and practical research on empowerment, experiential expertise, poverty, social exclusion, vulnerable groups, social work and care. In 2011, for example, she gave the Marie Kamphuis lecture 'Lexicon of empowerment'.

Prof. Dr. Tine Van Regenmortel (1961) obtained her PhD in Psychological Sciences at the KU Leuven on the theme 'Empowerment and tailored care. A force-focused psychological view of poverty'. Since 1988 she has been affiliated with HIVA KU Leuven (Research Institute for Labour and Society) where she is head of the Research Group Social and Economic Policy and Social Integration (SEBMI). Since 2005, she has been teaching at the Faculty of Social Sciences KU Leuven in the Master in Social Work and Social Policy. Since 2014 she is also attached to Tranzo, the scientific centre for care and welfare of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, as coordinator of the Academic Workshop on Social Work. Previously, she was lecturer Empowerment and socially vulnerable groups in the Netherlands at the Fontys Hogeschool Sociale Studies in Eindhoven (2007-2012). In 2017, she was appointed as holder of the KU Leuven Chair 'Empowerment of underprivileged elderly'.

In addition, Van Regenmortel was and is a member of many committees and working groups and a promoter of various research projects. She is a promoter of the Flemish Welfare, Public Health and Family Support Centre and of an action research (Kom op tegen Kanker) on transmural care for cancer patients with psychosocial needs. She is also a member of the Dutch Recognition Committee Effective Social Interventions (subcommittee Social Support, Participation and Safety), member of the Advisory Council Knowledge Centre HAN Social and of the Scientific Advisory Council BPSW (Professional Association of Professionals in Social Work). Previously, for example, she was a member of the Provincial Health Council of Noord-Brabant (2011-2014).