Core business areas:

Lamers Urban Policy Consulting has ample experience in complex problems and diverse other themes within the social pillar of urban policy, including but not limited to:

  1. Youth delinquency. Lamers Urban Policy Consulting recently organised a conference on youth delinquency, with cooperation of high level policy makers, managers, and academics, bringing together various perspectives on the issue.
  2. Youth and security. the red thread through Lamers Urban Policy Consulting’ history, the intersection between policy areas youth and security has traditionally been Lamers Urban Policy Consulting’ core area. Assignments include various policy making and research tasks, for local and city councils in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
  3. Safe neighbourhoods and safe schools. Taking into account the needs of the citizens in particular areas, Lamers Urban Policy Consulting initiated numerous activities to increase safety in neighbourhoods, for example in Rotterdam where it invested in one of the focus neighborhoods of the Dutch Cabinet, “Oude Westen”. Lamers Urban Policy Consulting also worked to increase safety at schools. In an evaluation program in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid Lamers Urban Policy Consulting investigated the safety as part of a quality analysis.
  4. Involvement of parents. Involving all stakeholders is key to Lamers Urban Policy Consulting’ way of working and parents are involved in early stages in nearly all projects with youngsters.
  5. Nuisance causing groups of youngsters. Comprising the majority of tasks, Lamers Urban Policy Consulting has always been actively engaged in bringing down nuisance caused by groups of youngsters, mostly as trailblazer for the Mosaic network method methodology, see methodology section.
  6. Preventive youth policy. Lamers Urban Policy Consulting puts considerable emphasis on prevention. Examples of assignments include developing a learning trajectory in Rotterdam Noord and carrying out research on preventive policies at Lamers Urban Policy Consulting’ own initiative.
  7. Care. Lamers Urban Policy Consulting participates in many national and international networks, but also instigate networks on various issues. One is care. Lamers Urban Policy Consulting for example set up and coordinated a network of care organisations on youngsters between 12 and 18 years old in Amsterdam Noord.
  8. Participation of citizens. Inextricably related to the other themes Lamers Urban Policy Consulting’ expertise is in, the stimulation of participation stands central to Lamers Urban Policy Consulting’ work. A current project is stimulating youth participation in Rotterdam Centrum, which involves the set up of a youth council and the embedding within the local municipality structures.
  9. Diversity in neighbourhoods. Lamers Urban Policy Consulting has specifically worked on diversity in neighbourhoods, for example in the “ Jacob Loisbuurt” in Rotterdam.

Areas of organisational expertise

A large number of organisations is involved in complex problems, which presents challenges for coordination and streamlining. Lamers Urban Policy Consulting has gained solid experience with organisational themes, including but not limited to:

Specific organisational assignments included but were not limited to:

  • Organising adequate networks for tackling complex problems;
  • Guiding all stakeholders into the same direction, such that the organisations view the problems as they are perceived by the target group and such that they view themselves as contributors to achieving a shared goal;
  • Urging on institutions or local-level government to transform societal problems (external) to concrete actions (internal);
  • Improving the relationship between citizen and administration through open communication, in which borders are well defined and attention is paid to diversity ;
  • Combining top-down approaches related to vision, prioritization, budgeting, and capacity, with bottom-up perspectives in which professionals are challenged and form solid alliances with other organisations;
  • Linking policy to implementation;
  • Developing competencies related to the developments in the field;
  • Facilitating mosaic-cooperation (a method in which different organisations work together) by utilising the capacity, motivation, and inspiration of the participating organisations to a maximum;
  • Translating academic insights into practical actions;
  • Designing integral working methods, which lead to tailor-made approaches in implementation processes and allows for lessons to be drawn for future reference;
  • Realising connections between repressive partners (such as the Public Prosecutor, the Board for Child Protection, and the probation and after-care service providers), curative partners (youth welfare services, Public Health Service), and preventive partners (social work and rehabilitation organisations);