Hanneke Creemers is associate professor Forensic Child & Youth Care Sciences and Graduate School director Pedagogische en Onderwijswetenschappen at the Department of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam. Her work focuses on how to effectively reach youth and families with severe and complex problems, assess their treatment needs, and intervene in evidence-based ways, particularly in forensic and other high‑risk care contexts.

She started her career at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Erasmus Medical Centre, combining diagnostics and treatment in clinical practice with a PhD on the development of addictive behaviors in youth. For her PhD research she participated in TRAILS, a longitudinal, multidisciplinary study on the development of adolescents and young adults.

Over the last decade, Hanneke has specialized in effectiveness studies examining what works for whom in care for youth and families with severe problems. As daily supervisor, she has been involved in several large‑scale (randomized) controlled trials within and outside the juvenile justice context, including studies on:

• Family Group Conferencing ('Eigen Kracht conferenties') in child welfare (Dijkstra, 2019, financed by ZonMw and WODC);
• the Dutch Cell Dogs program (DCD) in juvenile and adult correctional facilities (Duindam, 2021);
• the InConnection approach ('InVerbinding') in youth care (Koper, 2023);
• school-based intervention programs to strengthen the link between (secondary) school and mental health care (van Loon, 2022, financed by NWA); 
• Forensic Outpatient Systemic Therapy (FAST) in forensic mental health care (van Cappellen, ongoing, financed by ZonMW);
• Turn-over, an indicated group-based and development-oriented sports intervention for youth aged 12 to 18 with psychosocial problems and school dropout (Tervooren, ongoing). 

With a grant from KFZ‑J, she currently studies the development of treatment motivation in youth and caregivers in residential Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT). In the area of screening and assessment, an NWA Idea Generator grant and a grant from KFZ‑J enabled her to develop and examine the implementation and validity of What’s Up?, a virtual reality assessment to measure reactive aggression and its origins in young people in forensic youth care.

From 2015 to 2021, she coordinated the clinical master’s program Forensic Child & Youth Care Sciences, preparing students for clinical careers as behavioral scientist practitioners in the forensic youth field. From 2021 to 2025, she served as programme director of the bachelor Pedagogics. In her current role as Graduate School director Pedagogische en Onderwijswetenschappen, she is responsible for the strategic development and quality assurance of graduate education. She also teaches in both the bachelor and master programmes.