Umbrella of Giftedness
The parent organizations Pharos, HINT Nederland and Choochem decided to join forces in 2000. What started as regular meetings between the chairs of the different organizations became the ‘Koepel Hoogbegaafdheid’ (Umbrella of Giftedness) in 2003. The ‘Foundation Koepel Hoogbegaafheid’ started in 2009.
Information
The ‘Koepel Hoogbegaafdheid’ disseminates its information in different ways: at symposiums, seminars and public meetings. The Koepel can also be found on the biannual ‘Nationale Onderwijs Tentoonstelling’ (National Exhibition of Education). The ‘Koepel Hoogbegaafdheid’ has composed a book with several articles written by various experts in the field about the many different aspects of giftedness. (Sorry, only available in Dutch)
Mission
The mission of the ‘Koepel Hoogbegaafdheid’ is to create a society in which highly gifted children can reach their full potential: a society in which their talents can be fully developed and in which they have the same kind of chances as other children. The Koepel wants to support them in all their material and intangible needs.
The ‘Koepel Hoogbegaafdheid’ is an important representative of highly gifted children and their parents in The Netherlands. The Koepel wants to raise specific awareness of the needs of the highly gifted in education. One of their goals is a compulsory course on ‘how to deal with the highly gifted child’ for all primary school teachers.
The influence of government policy and politics in general is also of great importance. The Koepel will of course also maintain good relations with all organisations and consultancies with similar goals.
Quality
To insure that the organisations and consultancies that deal with giftedness maintain a high standard the ‘Koepel Hoogbegaafdheid’ registers persons considered competent to work with the highly gifted. In 2016 they established the “Register of approved professionals in Giftedness”. (In Dutch: KwaliteitsRegister HoogBegaafdheid) Working together with people in the field they have formulated the rules for admission. Parents can use this register to easily find quality support in dealing with giftedness.
Why give attention to giftedness?
About 2.5 percent of our population is highly gifted. In the Netherlands that amounts to about 430,000 people. Highly gifted children have a different view on life than their neighbours, family or friends. They may respond differently to people and situations around them. More attention has been paid to gifted children during the last few decades. More and more we have come to realize that talent will only develop through hard work and learning from your own mistakes. Things don’t just ‘come naturally’, and this is especially true for highly gifted people. It is naive to think that you won’t have to learn and never have to work hard if you are highly gifted. This thought, which seems intuitively correct, can have disastrous results for young developing minds, but also for adults when dealing with communication errors in the workplace.
The ‘different way of thinking’ of the highly gifted can give them stress in childhood as well as in adult life. How much can they adapt to their surroundings without losing themselves in the process? Could they have surroundings better suited to their needs? Young children can experience this different way of thinking as a personal shortcoming and this can have a negative effect on their confidence. The advocacy for highly gifted adults is improving, but employers are not always up to date on the best ways to accommodate their gifted workers and the gifted individuals themselves are also not always well informed.
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If your organisation wants to set up a simular “Register of approved professionals in Giftedness” we would love to help you with all our knowledge.