Child abuse is a major problem with serious consequences for individual victims and society. Prevalence rates seem to indicate that efforts made to reduce child abuse haven’t led to a substantial reduction of the annual numbers of child abuse. Moreover, overview studies show that interventions are only effective to a limited extent in preventing child abuse. The current project is therefore aimed at increasing the effectiveness of (early) intervention. This project builds on the findings of a primarily study which was carried out in phase 1 of the ‘Consortium Early preventive interventions’. Within this primarily study the knowledge about the effectiveness of intervening was examined .

The current project is aimed at improving the identification of (the risks of) child abuse by schools, general practitioners, mental healthcare and consultation centers by conducting qualitative research. Furthermore, the long term effects of interventions that are used in the Netherlands to prevent child abuse are being investigated. In addition, a meta-analysis will be conducted about the specific effective elements of different types of interventions used to prevent child abuse.

This project is part of the ZonMW program ‘Consortium Vroeg preventieve interventies - Fase 2’. More information can be found here .