SOFT tulip

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SOFT tulip improves the quality of life of persons with disabilities, elderly people and people with psychological challenges.

Overall Objective
Improving the quality of life and the quality of services for people with special needs, through capacity building, strengthening of civil society and policy changes. objectives
the development of the capacities of care service providers and people with special needs
the empowerment of local trainers to create sustainable capacities for independent development
the empowerment of parents of disabled children to enhance their capacities and influence on and cooperation with the service providers and governmental institutions
the development of Early Childhood Intervention programs and policies to empower families and prevent institutionalization
facilitating the process of inclusive education, supported living, inclusive work, and leisure for people with special needs
to stimulate structural inclusive policies and quality of care through lobby & advocacy
to give opportunities to Dutch care experts to gain experience and to learn from their colleagues in other countries

13/10/2026

The word is out: EASPD is now Disability Support Europe! 🎉

Last week at its conference in Brussels, the European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities unveiled its new name, and a new mission: Every day is built for everyone.

Thirty years ago, EASPD started with two goals: to give the disability support sector one voice in Europe, and to help services develop and change together. Today, it represents more than 40.000 support services across Europe. The new name marks our joint goal: a Europe where people with disabilities have the same choices and opportunities as everyone else.

One question ran through every session of the conference: what if disability isn’t the barrier we think it is?

The answer came back again and again: inclusion is not determined by the disability, but by the environment.

Physical, social and attitudinal barriers are often what exclude people. When society is designed only for ‘able-bodied people’, instead of embracing human diversity, we create exclusion. It is our shared responsibility to build environments where everyone can take part. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities serves as our shared compass.

Another key take-away: the right support at the right moment can change a life. It can decide whether someone takes a job, joins their community and lives the life they choose, or remains shut out.

This is what we work on every day in Ukraine, together with our partners: moving from institutions towards care in the community. It is encouraging to see so many people across Europe building in the same direction.

Thank you, Disability Support Europe, for 3 inspiring days. Congratulations on 30 years, and here’s to the next chapter!

05/10/2026

‘Problem behaviour’ is often not the problem.

Fear, suspicion, anger: they make sense when you no longer understand the world around you. For someone with dementia, it is a normal reaction to losing abilities. And it is up to us as carers to take the extra step towards the person.
That was the message that stayed with us from two online sessions on dementia care, given by Melanie De Weger, psychologist at Lelie zorggroep.

Why these sessions? Because Ukrainian professionals in residential care institutions asked for them. Every day they meet residents with memory loss, confusion and changes in behaviour, and they want to understand what is going on.

It starts with knowing that dementia is not just one disease:
- Alzheimer's (60-70% of cases) begins with memory problems and progresses gradually.
- Vascular dementia (about 16%) comes in sudden steps, often after a TIA or stroke. People stay aware of what is happening to them for a long time, and that weighs on their mood.
- Dementia with Lewy bodies brings strong fluctuations and visual hallucinations, and makes people very sensitive to the side effects of antipsychotics.
- Frontotemporal dementia often starts between 40 and 60 and changes personality first, while memory is still intact.

Each form asks something different from the people who provide care.
Read the full article, with practical tips for communicating with people with dementia: https://lnkd.in/eVGWUx7j

28/09/2026

What can the Dutch care system learn from Ukraine? More than you might expect.

In the Netherlands, we are used to a very well organised care system. In Ukraine, care professionals work with far fewer resources and under very different circumstances. Yet they are steadily changing the way care is provided.

Last summer, our director Ieke Lammeren visited the Zakarpattia region, together with Dutch colleagues Petra Moonen, Rene Keet, Michiel Bahler and Eric Bloemkolk. They visited Turia Remeta Psychoneurological Boarding Institution, Mukachevo Children's Boarding Institution and Mukachevo Psychoneurological Boarding Institution.

It was Ieke's 3rd visit to Ukraine. What stays with her most is the same every time:

“What impresses and moves me most, every single time, is the unwavering eagerness to learn, adapt, and keep developing despite the circumstances” says Ieke. To her, that willingness to learn is the most powerful driver of development, and a mindset worth building on everywhere, the Netherlands included.

She brought back 3 lessons:

1. Achieve more with less
Even under pressure, the care system keeps working. Professionals keep making care more person-centred, driven by strong motivation and hard work.

2. Stay focused on what matters
In the Netherlands, we organise things very well, sometimes too well. When rules and procedures take over, we risk losing sight of what counts most: the actual care for the people and their family.

3. Bring care back into the community
Because of the Soviet legacy, many people with disabilities in Ukraine still live in large institutions. But the drive to change that is very strong. We need stronger collaboration and care that is rooted in the community. It gives people a place in society and makes care systems more resilient. This matters more than ever in times of war.

SOFT tulip has worked in Ukraine for 20 years, training staff, directors and management teams. Those years have built trust with both the government and the institutions, and they are eager to work with us as community-based care develops.

Sometimes the best lessons come from where you least expect them.

17/09/2026

Who supports those who support others?

For many people living in villages close to the frontline in Ukraine, reaching medical and care facilities is extremely difficult, so care comes to them.

A mobile medical convoy supported by LifeLine Ukraine Foundation travels to communities, bringing medical, dental, and humanitarian assistance directly to people who remain there. The team consists of 30 volunteers with medical backgrounds. But every day, they encounter needs that go far beyond physical health.

They meet people living with the psychological consequences of war, prolonged stress, loss, and repeated traumatic experiences. At the same time, the volunteers themselves work under enormous pressure and are continuously exposed to the suffering of others.

That raises an important question: how can you support the mental health of a community while protecting your own?
On 13 July and 26 August, together with LifeLine Ukraine Foundation, GGZ Noord-Holland-Noord and ARQ-IVP, SOFT tulip organised two online training sessions for the mobile team.

8 professionals, 4 organisations, one question: how do you build good care outside institutions? Thanks to Michiel Bahler, Jeroen Scholten, Wendy Weijts, Marjonneke de Vetten, René Keet, Bender, Eric Bloemkolk and Jasper van Marle for bringing expertise from SOFT tulip, GGZ Noord-Holland-Noord, ARQ-IVP and LifeLine Ukraine Foundation.

The aim was not to turn medical volunteers into mental health specialists. It was to strengthen their understanding of community-based mental health, give them practical knowledge for responding to the people they meet, and help them protect their own mental well-being.

The training focused on three important principles.

First: understanding cumulative shocking events and recovery.
Trauma does not happen in isolation, particularly during a prolonged war. Social connections and the community around a person can play an essential role in recovery.

Second: understanding “professional armour”.
People working in extremely difficult circumstances need a certain level of emotional protection. Too much distance can make empathy difficult; too little can leave professionals overwhelmed. Finding that balance is essential — and so is self-care.

Third: strengthening community mental health.
The goal is not only to respond to individual mental health problems, but to strengthen the capacity of communities themselves to support mental well-being and recovery.

After the first session, the team leader told us:
“Thank you for your cooperation and care. The training was interesting and valuable - although it was short, it gave us a much-needed chance to step away from reality, even if only briefly.

We would like more knowledge on recovery and preserving our own well-being - the kind that can help not only our team, but also the people working directly in the field.

We would also like to request training of trainers in mental health, as well as burnout prevention training. We have a strong foundation and a motivated team - what we need is your expertise, support, and care to help us grow this further.”

For SOFT tulip and partners, this is exactly why investing in local capacity matters.

In communities affected by war, sustainable mental health support cannot depend only on specialists coming from outside. It also means strengthening the people who are already there - the professionals and volunteers whom communities know and trust, and who continue showing up every day.

Together with LifeLine Ukraine Foundation and GGZ Noord-Holland-Noord, we are now working on how to continue the training of the mobile team and further strengthen community-based mental health services in and around Ukraine’s frontline regions.

Because caring for a community also means caring for those who care for it.

10/09/2026

Finally: after 17 years, Early Childhood Intervention in Ukraine is a right.

Until now, the availability of Early Childhood Intervention services largely depended on the decisions and support of local and regional authorities.

On 19 August 2026, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted Law No. 4955-IX. A very important milestone for Early Childhood Intervention in Ukraine and the result of 17 years of work by many organisations, professionals, families and policymakers.

The new law changes this: families with children from birth to four years old who have developmental difficulties or are at risk of developing them now have the right to receive Early Childhood Intervention services.

The law also provides an important basis for making Early Childhood Intervention sustainable nationwide: Early Childhood Intervention will be included among social services of national importance, with ongoing financing from the state budget.
For SOFT tulip and our Ukrainian partners, this moment follows 17 years of advocacy, cooperation, pilots, policy dialogue, training and development of ECI in Ukraine.

There have been many important steps along the way.
In 2017, an interministerial Memorandum of Understanding formally established the Platform for ECI Policy Dialogue and launched the first official Early Childhood Intervention pilots in four regions. In 2018, an international conference on Early Childhood Intervention brought together families, professionals and policymakers in Kharkiv.

In 2019, the National Council for Early Intervention was established, with SOFT tulip as an official member, and ECI pilots were expanded to ten regions. This was followed by national guidelines, the Concept for the creation and development of the Early Intervention system, and its Action Plan.

At the same time, Early Childhood Intervention continued to grow in practice.

What started with one Early Childhood Intervention centre in Kharkiv in 2000 grew to four centres in 2011 and to more than 160 services today, reaching over 10,000 families across 16 regions of Ukraine.

The new law now gives this work a national legal framework. It defines Early Childhood Intervention as a family-centred service that brings together social, educational and healthcare support around the child and their family, in the everyday environment where the child lives and grows.

It also establishes that Ukraine's Early Intervention system should be based on international standards of a family-centred approach.

This is particularly important today: the war has increased the need for support for children and families, making accessible and sustainable Early Childhood Intervention services more important than ever.

17 years. From one centre to more than 160. From pilot projects to a national system. And from local decisions to a right established by law.

We are grateful to all our Ukrainian partners, families, professionals and policymakers who have contributed to this process!

This is an important step, and the next one is to make this right accessible to families across Ukraine. 💙💛

24/08/2026

🇺🇦 24 August marks Ukraine's Independence Day — and 1991 also marks the year SOFT tulip was founded.

Since 2006, we've worked alongside Ukraine on a shared belief: that people with disabilities and mental health conditions deserve to live full lives within their own communities, not behind institution walls.

Over these years, together with our partners, we've strengthened:
🔹 A growing network of Early Childhood Intervention services, supporting families across the country
🔹 A peer-to-peer network of "change agents," professionals bringing their experience to colleagues nationwide
🔹 A training center for supported living, along with regular training by Dutch psychiatrists and supervision for social workers
🔹 National working groups shaping mental health reform in Ukraine
🔹 International partnerships (like AMUSE) connecting Ukraine with expertise across Europe.

None of this happened overnight — and none of it happened alone. It's the result of years of collaboration with local authorities, healthcare professionals, families, and communities across Ukraine.

Happy Independence Day, Ukraine. We're honoured to keep building this future with you. 💙💛

17/08/2026

"Real change happens when we don't simply help, but share expertise and learn from one another."

Andra Kranendonk, board member at Lelie zorggroep, has spent her career in healthcare — from ICU nurse to hospital leadership roles to the boardroom.

For Andra, SOFT tulip's partnership with Ukraine isn't about one-off visits or symbolic gestures. It's about knowledge exchange that lasts.

"Knowledge creates sustainability. When you educate people and help them develop their own competencies, the system can eventually function independently."

Lelie zorggroep’s expertise lies in care and support services, including dementia care, youth care, and care for people with Korsakoff syndrome. Rather than focusing on forms of care outside their field of expertise, Andra believes in collaborating from a position of humility: sharing only the knowledge that is genuinely helpful.

At the start of the full-scale invasion, Lelie zorggroep opened its doors to people fleeing Ukraine, including people with disabilities and elderly people who arrived with nothing.

"It was deeply impressive and emotionally intense... We did this not as a specialized refugee organization, but out of humanity and solidarity."

Looking ahead, Andra hopes for focused, well-defined projects with clear outcomes — and a leadership style rooted in the same values as good care itself:
"A good leader is not someone who controls everything from the top, but someone who creates the conditions for a team to function well."

Thank you, Andra, for your clarity, humility, and commitment to partnership built on mutual respect.

Read the full interview on our website (link in comments).

11/08/2026

What do families of children with disabilities really need — and are existing early childhood intervention services meeting those needs?

As part of the M-Power project, we asked both sides. Two international surveys gathered responses from 174 parents and 100 professionals across Bulgaria, Italy, the Netherlands, and Romania, with the data analysed by Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca.

And despite looking at the system from different perspectives, parents and professionals tell us remarkably similar things. Parents value the expertise of professionals and see the positive impact of early intervention on their children. But they also point to significant gaps: psychological support for parents, stress management, continuity of care, coordination between services, and equal access to resources.

Professionals see many of the same challenges. They highlight delays in accessing support, fragmented health, education and social care systems, difficult transitions between services, and insufficient psychological support for families.

The message from both surveys is clear:
Early childhood intervention cannot focus only on the child. We need to support the whole family.

Key takeaways:
✔ Children achieve better outcomes when families are recognised and supported as active partners in early intervention.
✔ Timely access to services and better coordination between institutions remain major challenges.
✔ Parents need emotional and psychological support alongside professional guidance.
✔ Stronger collaboration between health, education and social care is essential.
✔ Investing in professionals — including their communication, counselling and family-support skills — strengthens the quality of family-centred services.

These findings will now inform the next phase of M-Power: we will use them to develop resources focused on peer support, family resilience, stress management and emotional wellbeing — complementing professional services and helping families feel more connected, confident and supported.

Because better outcomes for children start with stronger support for the people closest to them.
You can read the full article by link in comments.

06/08/2026

When Eric Bloemkolk first travelled to Ukraine in 2006, he visited several post Soviet-era institutions for children with disabilities: they call them internats.

What he saw was devastating: children were severely malnourished. Many received little stimulation or rehabilitation. The staff had almost no training. For too many families, placing a child in an institution felt like the only possible choice.

Eric returned home with one conviction: this system had to change.
This year SOFT tulip celebrated 17 years of working in Ukraine, and for Eric, it was a particularly emotional milestone. He has now visited Ukraine more than 100 times (perhaps 150!), working alongside many of the same people he first met almost two decades ago.

Looking back, one initiative stands out as one of SOFT tulip's greatest achievements in Ukraine: Early Childhood Intervention (ECI).
The idea was inspired not only by Eric's professional experience, but also by his personal story: his first son was born with significant brain damage. Thanks to timely, family-centred support in the Netherlands, his son developed well and went on to live a full life.

That experience raised a simple but powerful question:
What if Ukrainian families could receive the same support before they were ever forced to consider institutional care?

That question became the foundation of Early Childhood Intervention in Ukraine. The main principles are:

❤️ Support families, not just children.
Parents are not passive recipients of care, they become the most important partners in their child's development.

🏡 Work where life happens.
Support takes place at home, within the family's everyday routines, not only during one-hour appointments at a centre.

🤝 Empower instead of replace.
Professionals don't "take over." They help parents gain the confidence and practical skills to support their child every day.

🧠 Act early.
The first three years of life are when around 90% of brain connections develop, making early intervention one of the most effective forms of prevention.

🌱 Prevent institutionalisation.
The greatest success is not improving life inside institutions—it's ensuring children never have to enter them.

👩‍⚕️ One family, one multidisciplinary team.
Medical and social professionals work together around the family instead of sending parents through fragmented systems.

Seventeen years later, what began with one pilot team has become a national movement:
• nearly 180 Early Childhood Intervention teams across 16 regions of Ukraine;
• more than 130 professionals united in the National Association of Early Intervention;
• and, most recently, state funding for the specialists delivering these services.

Especially during the war, this work has become even more important. Families are not only caring for children with developmental challenges, they are also living with displacement, uncertainty, and loss. ECI gives them something priceless: knowledge, confidence, and hope.

Adres

Platinaweg 10
The Hague
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Telefoon

31621580316

Website

http://www.softtulip.nl/

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