Mariëtte Lusse is committed to increasing equality of opportunity and better management of poverty for children growing up in vulnerable families. Initially as a community worker in Rotterdam, later as founder of a parenting agency and policy officer for parenting support in Spijkenisse. She has been working at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences since 2001. First at the study programme Educational Theory, where she worked with many partners in the field from the internship office, helped shape the curriculum and developed minors on parenting support and drop-out prevention, and then as a researcher at the Research Centre Urban Talent.
In 2013, Mariëtte obtained her doctorate in design-oriented research with 15 schools in Rotterdam-South on how schools in the metropolitan vocational secondary school can shape the collaboration with parents in such a way that it contributes to the prevention of school drop-out. On this basis, she wrote (with Annette Diender) the practical book 'Working Together on School Success' for vocational secondary schools and colleges, which was nominated for the NRO-VOR-Practice Prize 2015. In 2019, this was followed up by the book 'School and Home. Success Factors for Connecting Two Worlds'. Because she likes to dedicate herself to research that directly contributes to the improvement of practice, she was associated with the Design Science Research Group for a long time (e.g. as chairman).
Together with Nicole Lucassen (EUR), professor of Child Poverty, Mariëtte leads a research programme, initiated by Nationaal Fonds Kinderhulp and the municipality of Rotterdam, that connects science, policy and practice on child poverty. Together with Annelies Kassenberg (Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen), she developed in 2020-2021 a triptych of manuals for professionals with methods to better identify child poverty and to better support and stimulate children, youngsters and (future) parents in poverty.
