Shaping Safer Futures exchange programme full-time

In this module, with two components, you’ll explore safety in society from multiple perspectives, focusing on children, and family safety, vulnerable groups, crime, and behavioral change, while developing an integrated, multi-perspective understanding of safety.

Apply for this programme

Location

Breda

Starting month

February

Duration

20 weeks, 30 ects

Language

English

What is Shaping Safer Futures

Safety is at the heart of healthy, inclusive societies—and in this program, you will learn how to make a real difference. You will explore what drives behavioral change, focusing on motivation, recovery, and desistance from offending or antisocial behavior. At the same time, you will develop a deep understanding of how to protect the safety of others and how to act effectively at individual, family, community, and (inter-)national levels.

You will learn to view safety from multiple perspectives: emotional, social, and physical. From a child perspective and adult perspective. Through real-world questions—such as how to act in unsafe situations, manage crises, and prevent escalation—you will build both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. The program equips you with models of deviant behavior, rehabilitation, and desistance, alongside essential competencies in communication, ethical decision-making, crisis management, and collaboration.

Working in a multi-professional and interprofessional context, you will learn the value of cooperation with key partner institutions. With a strong focus on children, families, and vulnerable groups across health, welfare, and safety domains, this program empowers you to become an active promoter of just, peaceful, and inclusive societies—contributing directly to Sustainable Development Goal 16.

Practical information Shaping Safer Futures

Period 1 – Module A Child-Centered Working: Children, Families and Safety (15 ECTS)

This first period focuses on children and families within the context of safety, emphasizing prevention, protection, and creating safe environments across different life domains.

Key modules and themes:

Concept of Safety: You explore what safety means in relation to children and families, including cultural, physical, mental, emotional, social, and digital safety. Safety is examined on multiple levels: individual, family (small and extended), community, and society (national and international). You will learn how to promote, create, and maintain safety, as well as how to prevent unsafe situations.
Law and Legislation in Child and Family Contexts: This module introduces the legal frameworks professionals work within, including family law, mental health law, and relevant aspects of criminal law. You will examine professional responsibilities, rights, limitations, privacy issues, and the influence of social media on safety and welfare.
Multi-Perspective View and Ethical Awareness: You develop insight into how different stakeholders—such as children, parents, professionals, volunteers, and experience experts—perceive safety and behavior. With a focus on cultural perspectives on safety. Attention is given to norms, values, emotions, stereotypes, ethical decision-making, and risk and needs assessment in child- and family-centered practice.

Period 2 – Module B Forensic work: Changing Behavior of Individuals and Society (15 ECTS)

The second period focuses on behavioral change, desistance, and societal transformation, preparing you to work with individuals displaying deviant or antisocial behavior while contributing to safer communities.

Key modules and themes:

Theoretical Models of Behavior and Change: You study a wide range of theoretical frameworks to understand and influence behavior, including models of radicalisation and polarisation, deviant and criminal behavior, psychiatry and addiction, trauma-sensitive and intersectional working, recovery-oriented approaches, rehabilitation models, the Good Lives Model, RNR model, social and human capital, and desistance theories.
Working Alliance and Decision-Making: This module focuses on building effective working alliances with clients or patients, balancing guidance and control within a hybrid professional relationship. You develop decision-making skills and learn how to apply frameworks such as Motivational Interviewing and Recovery-Oriented Working, including work with specific target groups. In this module you will learn where the changes can take place and how interagency work can contribute to that.

Together, these two periods equip you with the knowledge, skills, and professional attitude to work effectively with children, families, individuals, and stakeholders in the domains of health, welfare, justice, and safety, contributing to safer, more inclusive societies.

Learning objectives

Module A:

You can develop an audiovisual presentation explaining a practice improvement that promotes the well-being of children in complex situations, such as violence in dependent relationships, poverty, or children of incarcerated parents. The presentation demonstrates how knowledge of developmental domains, children’s rights, and SDGs is applied to raise awareness among professionals of possible improvements in practice.
You can verbally justify your professional actions by explaining choices, reflections, and ethical considerations, including the impact on children, their network, and society. You demonstrate an understanding of how their professional role contributes to promoting well-being and protecting children’s rights.

Module B:

You can develop and present a substantiated improvement plan within the forced care context, based on analysis of a complex social issue, theoretical frameworks, and practical experience, aimed at enhancing the safety, well-being, and recovery of the client and their network.
You can verbally justify your professional actions, explaining choices, interventions, and outcomes, addressing ethical and legal dilemmas, and clarifying the impact of their actions on the client, the network, and society.
You can reflect in a professional conversation on personal and professional growth based on knowledge, skills and interdisciplinary cooperation, critically evaluate their own actions, identify learning points, and define concrete steps to more effectively contribute to safety, recovery, and collaboration with relevant stakeholders.

Questions about this programme

More information about this programme is available at the Avans School of Welfare, Education and Health: globalisation.aweg@avans.nl or international coördinator Angèle Geerts asam.geerts@avans.nl.

This programme is for students who are interested in the person behind deviant behavior and unsafe situations, with a focus on children and families in module A and on individuals showing deviant behavior in module B. You are curious about where behavior originates, how it can be explained, and how social, family, and societal contexts influence children’s safety and development.

You want to understand why children, individual adults, families, and communities may feel unsafe, how situations can become risky or harmful, and how professionals can intervene early to prevent escalation. Safety is the central theme of this program: the safety of children, families, neighborhoods, society, and professionals, viewed across emotional, social, physical, and digital domains.

The programme is particularly suitable for students who are motivated to:

analyse safety issues from child-centered, family, community, and societal perspectives
balance care, welfare, and safety in complex family and community situations
explore how deviant or risky behavior affects children directly or indirectly
consider the interests and responsibilities of multiple stakeholders at individual, family, and neighborhood levels
learn how to apply theoretical models of deviant behavior, rehabilitation, recovery, and desistance to real-life situations
sevelop skills in decision making, working alliances, risk and needs assessment, and crisis management
is studying within the fields of care, welfare, safety, law, justice, social work, health, or related domains,

If you want to equip yourself with the knowledge, methodologies and values needed to work with children, families, and other stakeholders in the fields of care, welfare, and safety, you are warmly invited to participate.

Admissions requirements

The level of your prior education has to be equivalent to a Higher General Secondary Education level (Dutch H.A.V.O.) and English or Pre-University Level (Dutch V.W.O.).
In addition to the minimum diploma requirements, At least one year of university of university of applied science is the field of Social work, Nursing, Para-medics, Public Health nursing, Physiotherapy, Safety, Law, Pedagogy, Psychology is required. Other fields can apply but will have an intake so that it can be assessed whether the training is sufficiently in line with the program content
ISCED codes (no intake needed): 0313, 0314, 0319, 0421, 0910, 0913, 0915, 0919, 0920, 0923, 0929, 0988, 1030.
Application without intake: Social work, Nursing, Paramedics, Public Health nursing, Physiotherapy, Safety or Security, Law, Sociology, Pedagogy, Psychology.
Application with intake: all other educational fields.

If you are unsure whether you meet the admission requirements, please send us an email. If we are not familiar with your foreign diploma, NUFFIC, the Dutch organization for international recognition of diploma, will check the level for us. Read more about international secondary education diplomas on the website of Avans.

English language requirements for foreign students Exam

Minimum score
IELTS overall band 6
TOEFL computer based 213
TOEFL internet based 80

Visit this page for more information about the English language requirements for foreign exchange students.

Learning agreement

Learning agreement can be sent to globalisation.aweg@avans.nl.

Your job

This programme allows you to pursue a career to work with children, families, and other stakeholders in the fields of care, welfare, and safety.

You can participate in an exchange programme at Avans University of Applied Sciences if your home institution has concluded an agreement with Avans. Under this agreement you can be nominated to study with us.

Please read the details on the Applying page or contact your home institution's exchange coordinator for details. Alternatively, you can join us as a freemover.

Exchange students

As an exchange student, you will continue to pay tuition fees to your home institution. This means you do not have to pay tuition fees to Avans.

Other students

If your university is not a partner of Avans University of Applied Sciences, you can join us as a full-fee paying student. For more details, please contact the Avans International Office on +31 88 - 525 80 01 or at internationaloffice@avans.nl.

Questions about studying at Avans

If you have any questions about the exchange programme itself, please contact the Avans school. You can find the contact details on this page under the programme structure.

If you would like more information about studying at Avans, please contact our International Office: internationaloffice@avans.nl.