Working together to protect children in times of crisis
07 October 2024
Sofia Lindgren
On 18–21 August, over 900 reseachers and practioners from 73 countries gathered in Uppsala to participate in ISPCAN Congress 2024 on the theme "Working together in times of crises"
- Let this congress be more that just a series of meetings and presentations, let it be a forum where ideas are born, where collaborations are forged, where every delegate get a renewed sense of purpose. Reach out to someone new today, share your story, challenges and successes. Our strengths lies in diversity and it is while sharing those diversities we will find the most innovative solutions, said Praghati Tummala, CEO of ISPCAN at the inauguration on August 19th where Her Majesty Queen Silvia as well as Minna Ljunggren, state secretary to the Minister of Social Services Camilla Waltersson Grönwall also welcomed the participants.
The congress started already at Sunday, with a number of pre-conferences and working groups about trauma, children's advocacy centres, maltreatment, parenting programmes and child death reviews.
The first day's plenary speakers were Aili Keskitalo and professor Philip D. Jaffé. Keskitalo, a political advisor to Amnesty International Norway and former president of the Norwegian Sami Parliament, spoke about violence against and within Sami communities which was followed by several sessions about the theme from different perspectives. The following days the delagates were able to listen to following plenary speakers; Professor Eamon McCrory, Ms Lorna Stabler and professor Shanaaz Mathews.
In the exhibition area the delegates were able to take part of almost 250 posters as well as visiting the booths of organisations within the field.
For a ISPCAN first the theme Barnahus had a big part of the schedule. On August 18th Barnafrid co-host a pre-conference and working group about Barnahus and it was a topic on several sessions throughout the conference.
- Bringing together experts and professionals from around the world has given us a unique opportunity to exchange ideas and strategies to improve child protection globally. We are very happy about the outcome of the congress and how much energy that it has given to continue to protect children from violence’ said Laura Korhonen, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Director of Barnafrid.
The ISPCAN2025 Congress will be held October 6-9 in Vilnius, Lithuania.
ISPCAN 2024 in numbers
900
researchers and practitioners from different sectors.
73
different countries represented from all over the world.
767
research and practice abstracts submitted.
Royal prescence at the ISPCAN Congress
Foto: Sofia Lindgren
Her Majesty Queen Silvia
The congress was honoured to present Her Majesty Queen Silvia as a speaker at the inaguarition.
"We have an incredible gathering of brainpower, accumulated knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm here today. Let us harness this collective strength to discover new solutions for preventing violence and supporting children who have been exposed to trauma and other adversities."
Brooks Keeshin, Jessica Griffin, Poa Samuelberg. Foto: Sofia Lindgren
Translation or Interpretation? Applying Trauma Informed Mental Health Principles Across Disciplines
Pre-conference arranged by Brooks Keeshin, Jessica Graffin and Poa Samuelberg from Barnafrid.
Natalie Söderlind and Erica Mattelin
I can do this!
Natalie Söderlind, analyst at Barnafrid and Erica Mattelin, Phd, psychologist, Save the children held a worksion with practical guidance on how to involve children in research and development work related to violenve against children.
Godfried van Agthoven
Child protection services on health examinations in health care
Godfried van Agthoven, PhD student at Barnafrid and pediatrician held a presentation about a qualitative study about health examinations with a CPS perspective
Olga Granlöf and Lena Grafl
Working together for a brighter future in Ukraine
Lena Grafl and Olga Granlöf presented about Barnafrid's project aiming to increase the availability to effective support for children with trauma symptoms as a result of violenve and traumatic experiences.
Involving delegates for the Global Ministerial Conference
The First Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children is scheduled to take place on November 7-8, 2024, in Bogotá, Colombia. This landmark event is being convened by the Government of Colombia, with support from the Government of Sweden, UNICEF, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, and the World Health Organization.
The town hall meeting, moderated by Ola Florin, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Social Affairs is an important initiative organized at the request of the Minister of Social Services, Camilla Waltersson Grönwall. The event aimed to involve delegates from the ISPCAN2024 congress in a vital discussion on key actions to be prioritized for the Bogatá Meeting. The focus was on gathering insights from professionals and stakeholders regarding the critical areas that decision-makers should emphasize to effectively address violence against children.
The panel included Dr. Gabriel Otterman, Barnafrid, Minna Ljunggren, Senior Advisor to the Minister, Professor Shanaaz Mathews, the Faculty of Health Sciences at University of Cape Town, and Dr. Berit Kieselbach, World Health Organization, Geneva.
A great interest in Barnahus
Pre-conference
The pre-conference and working group about Barnahus gathered over 100 delegates interested in listening to presentations about the Barnahus-model as well as quality standards and acreditations for Barnahus.
Barnahus visit
The participants were invited to join a visit at Barnahus Uppsala, a much popular activity during the conference.
What did the participant think?
Dr Isang Awah
University of Oxford
"This is a great opportunity to connect and network with people who work on child protection. It is inspiring to engage with so many dedicated individuals and listen to their rich, impactful presentations. I’m here with colleagues from the Global Parenting Initiative. Alongside presentations from several team members, the Global Parenting Initiative also hosted a workshop on supporting families during and introduced our newly developed Toolkit on Crisis Parenting Rapid Response."
Dr Mariella Castillo
Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation, Philippines
"I found the conference reinforced a couple of themes that we want to pursue in our work. One of them is child participation. It was very refreshing to be refirmed on the direction we go. But at the same time we need to develop our own method."
PhD student Nicolás Eduardo Gabriel Vacher
Universidad de Chile, Chile
"I am loving how they are thinking about trauma informed systems for schools. I think we in Latin America are years back of thinking that. We are just implementing it in therapy or in other contexts. But children are most of the days in school, I think it is good and I will take it back with energy."
