What our graduates say
Methodology Coach & Trainer
Den Hey-Acker
“SafePath is ‘a gentle nutcracker’ capable of cracking even the hardest nut. The method is about fulfilling basic needs and that affects people. We all have basic needs and when they are met, positive forces are released. The method cultivates the soft side without being ‘flaky.’ Justice is a pretty hard world where that wouldn’t work. SafePath is a tool for colleagues to reflect. A safe tool, moreover. Colleagues discover sides of themselves knowing that they also have healthy sides. The method invites you to be vulnerable, which I think is wonderful. In addition to getting to know themselves better, colleagues also get to know each other better. They see the meetings as ‘team-building’ and they like that, I find that so inspiring. SafePath not only makes colleagues look at themselves and each other differently but also at the youth. Previously, we only saw the behavior of a boy and not the pattern underneath. Now we look a layer deeper, at the needs. It’s a paradigm shift.”
Theodoor de Kraker
GZ-psychologist
De Hoop GGZ
GZ-psychologist
Den Hey-Acker
Methodology Coach
Den Hey-Acker
“SafePath creates a common language, according to Pieter: ‘Almost everyone can speak to it. Also many of our youth with mild intellectual disabilities. Colleagues find the SafePath method not only helpful and valuable but sometimes also a bit anxiety-provoking, certainly ‘limited reparenting’. This is an attachment technique in which colleagues try to provide some of what the client missed growing up, within acceptable boundaries and limits. In the world of justice, this is new. Now, we sometimes sit next to a young person, on the edge of his bed, and then we talk about difficult things. It is mainly the colleagues who find that anxiety-inducing, it’s about distance versus proximity. When is it functional to get close and when are you crossing boundaries? The warmth that SafePath offers is new in this world of the youth prison.”