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President's Column
Anthony P. Mannarino, Ph.D.
Allegheny General Hospital
Pittsburgh, PA
As someone who has
dedicated almost his entire professional career to traumatic stress during
childhood and specifically, child maltreatment, I am deeply honored to be
the President of the Section on Child Maltreatment. Although our Section is relatively small, the importance of
our work is substantial and we make a significant contribution to the
American Psychological Association’s commitment to children and
families. I would like to
thank Sharon Portwood, J.D., Ph.D. who finished her term in 2006 as
President of the Section and who now serves on the Executive Committee as
Past President. Sharon did an outstanding job as President and I have greatly
admired her dedication in executing the responsibilities of the position.
Earlier this year,
President Bush followed the annual presidential tradition of declaring
April Child Abuse Prevention Month. Of
course, it is noteworthy that our President tries to capture the
public’s attention regarding the scope of the child maltreatment problem
in our society and the need to create safe and secure families and
communities for all of our children.
However, child maltreatment does not occur in isolation.
Sadly, many of our children are exposed to multiple other forms of
violence, including domestic violence, community violence, bullying, and
extrafamilial sexual assault. Violence
exposure, including child maltreatment, may contribute to a child’s
problems in several possible domains, such as mental health difficulties,
disruption of normal development and attachments, and later drug and
alcohol issues. Many of us believe that the different types of violence to
which children are exposed are interrelated and that researchers who study
child maltreatment benefit from knowing what researchers who study other
forms of violence are doing. Protecting
our children is a big job. Communication
between professionals and researchers in the child maltreatment field with
their counterparts in related areas of interpersonal violence can only
enhance our efforts to keep our children and communities safe.
For those of you who are members of the Section, we welcome you and encourage your participation. Please become active in any of the task forces or other projects that are ongoing within the Section. For anyone thinking about joining the Section, we’d love to have you as a member and join in our commitment to addressing the wide array of clinical, research, training, and prevention issues posed by the problem of child maltreatment. Although we can perhaps never eradicate child maltreatment in our society, the Section is dedicated to bringing further recognition to the problem of children’s exposure to abuse and other forms of violence, providing effective services to families to treat the impact of violence, and making the kind of sustained prevention efforts that may ultimately result in reduced exposure and safer families and communities.
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