Dear Colleagues,

The World Health Organization estimated that in the year 2019, over 1 billion children experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, or neglect. This statistic does not even take into account other stressors such as hunger, poverty, forced relocation, racism, and discrimination, which also negatively impact children and families around the world.

With such adverse childhood experiences being commonplace, these children and their families are of major concern for all helping professionals, including medical personnel, social workers, psychologists, counselors, researchers, educators, and rescue/relief agencies. The loss in terms of human and financial capital, including costs for family interventions, substance abuse treatment, incarceration, housing, crisis care, medical care, and missed school and work due to mental health challenges, makes this a global crisis. Without the proper development of healthy parenting practices, combined with adequate community supports, millions more children will suffer.

This Special Issue welcomes submissions from scholars and practitioners from any discipline focusing on traumatized children and families. Review articles identifying gaps in knowledge and suggestions for future work, as well as empirical articles examining any aspect of child abuse or neglect, will be considered. Possible foci include: evaluations of intervention/prevention programs, theoretical and methodological advancements (e.g., identifying mediators or moderators), and multidiscplinary or community-wide program development/implementation practices. We particularly welcome work examining diverse populations and from all regions of the world.

Prof. Dr. Tasha R. Howe
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• child abuse
• child neglect
• child maltreatment prevention
• parenting interventions
• parent–child attachment
• attachment theory
• program evaluation
• developmental psychopathology
• global child welfare
• evidence-based practices
• community interventions
• trauma-informed care