The 15th ESTSS conference was held in the birth town of the famous writer Hans Christian Andersen, Odense in Denmark, on the 2-4. June 2017. The conference was organised by the Danish Psychological Society against Child Maltreatment and the Danish Center for Psychotraumatology, and took place at the University of Southern Denmark.
The conference had “Child Maltreatment Across the Lifespan” as its theme. Child maltreatment occurs in all societies and remains a high priority on the global public health agenda and involves a complex interplay of social, cultural, economic and biological factors. The consequences of child maltreatment are multifaceted and associated with increased risk for chronic mental and physical health outcomes, across the lifespan. The goal of the conference was to establish “current knowledge” and “future directions” for child maltreatment research, to inform and to improve actions on prevention and treatment. In order to present a broad and nuanced overview, the conference included presentations and seminars from both research and clinical perspectives.
This approach aimed to increase collaborative work between trauma survivors, academia, voluntary and statutory services as well as policy makers in responding to new developments in the field.