Centre for Children in Vulnerable Situations (CCVS) is a research centre based on the cooperation between three Belgian universities: the Department of Clinical and Life Span Psychology at the VUB, the Departments of Social Work & Social Pedagogy and the Department of Special Needs Education at Ghent University, and the research group Education, Culture and Society at KU Leuven.
The Centre's overall goal is to promote the psychosocial well-being of children and adolescents living in vulnerable situations in Southern countries. This is mainly effected through the execution of practice-oriented research. Therefore, questions out of the field are taken as a starting point to set up and realize scientific research, and the conducted studies are "translated" back into concrete recommendations for both practices and policies.
Next to research, CCVS founded two support centres in Lira, Northern Uganda, and Bunia, Eastern-DRC. In these centres, psychotherapeutic support services are provided to war-affected children, youth, their families and communities.