The first SERENA consortium meeting will be held on September 15 – 16, 2025, in Cardiff, UK.

SERENA joined the ISPCAN 2025 congress , in Vilnius, Lithuania 6 - 9 October 2025 . We shared initial research results on the development and improvement of health and social care for child victims of maltreatment. During the ISPCAN congress, SERENA partners actively contributed through a variety of formats: Institute of Child Health, Athens (Sakis Ntinapogias) presented a poster introducing the SERENA project (coordinated by Catherine Quantin) and research to date. Authors: Catherine Quantin; Yulia Shenderovich; Ulugbek Nurmatov; Sinead Brophy; Peter Fallessen; Donna O'Leary; Andreas Jud; Leona Hakkaart-van Roijen; Neha Batura; Sakis Ntinapogias; George Nikolaidis (SERENA WP leaders). Cardiff University (Ulugbek Nurmatov) and Aarhus Universitet (Troels Græsholt-Knudsen) gave an oral presentation entitled “Comparative study of barriers and enablers for delivering and accessing health and social care services for children who experienced maltreatment in Denmark, France, and Wales”. Authors: Yulia Shenderovich, Ulugbek Nurmatov, Troels Græsholt-Knudsen, and other SERENA WP2&5 members. Swansea University (Laura Elizabeth Cowley) gave an oral presentation entitled “Hospitalisations for physical abuse in infants and children less than 5 years, 2013–2021: a multinational cohort study using administrative data from five European countries”. Authors: Catherine Quantin, Jonathan Cottenet, Colleen Chambers, Natasha Kennedy, Sadhbh Whelan, Geoff Debelle, Diogo Lamela, Ulugbek Nurmatov, Donna O’Leary, Christian Torp-Pedersen, Sinéad Brophy, Marcella Broccia, Ruth Gilbert, Troels Græsholt-Knudsen, and Laura Cowley (coordinated by Catherine Quantin). Universitatea Babes-Bolyai (Maria Roth) coordinated the Symposium “Voices of Survivors of Child Maltreatment: Participatory research with adult survivors – an essential contribution to research on child maltreatment". Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire de Dijon (Catherine Quantin) actively participated in the congress activities. By meeting other international and multidisciplinary professionals working to end abuse and neglect against children, we ensure that our research activities will inform developments to reduce maltreatment. We undertake to act together to improve detection of maltreatment and improve children care throughout Europe, and we commit to build meaningful recommendations to influence policy and European practices.

The SERENA project officially started on 1st January 2025.

The SERENA project is pleased to announce the publication of its preprint, now available for public access. The paper introduces SERENA, a Horizon Europe-funded initiative involving 22 partners across 12 European countries, and outlines the study protocol for assessing and improving access to health and social care services for children rendered vulnerable by abuse. Currently under review in the International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS) , the article details SERENA’s cross-sectoral and mixed-methods approach, including large-scale analyses of national health and social care data, qualitative interviews with professionals and survivors, and an evaluation of the societal costs of child maltreatment. The preprint also presents the project’s objectives, governance structure, and ethical framework, and describes SERENA’s ambition to develop recommendations that strengthen early detection, intervention, and coordination across European systems. Want to know more? Check out the preprint on our website or access it directly here.