Yvonne Heerkens
Professor Rehabilitation, Work and Health
Yvonne Heerkens is a movement scientist and, together with Josephine Engels, part-time professor of Work and Health.
Optimising labour participation and sustainable employability
Having a job is important; work contributes to the quality of people’s lives. So promoting sustainable employability is a major challenge. This also holds for people with chronic diseases, workers with care tasks and special groups, such as older people. Having spent a long time working in the field of allied health, I find it particularly interesting to see how a research group can make a concrete contribution to the professionalisation of aspiring and established allied health workers, nurses, lifestyle coaches and occupational health and safety professionals. How can they approach employees and work from a holistic perspective, optimising the labour participation and the sustainable employability of their clients?
Collaboration within and outside HAN
By collaborating with other research groups within the Research Centre for Rehabilitation, Work and Sports, we can better address factors that affect the identification of talent (in sport, but also on the work floor), increase self-management, and improve and accelerate reintegration processes. Wherever necessary and possible, we also work with other research groups and centres within and outside HAN, and with universities, professional organisations and other relevant parties, such as care institutions and companies.
Background
The international work of Yvonne Heerkens revolves around issues of terminology and technology: she is involved in developing the ICF and WHO classifications and descriptions of individual functioning and associated factors, as well as in the ISO 9999, an international classification of assistive products.
Expertise areas
- Work & health
- Working with a chronic disease
- International classifications (f.e. ICF)