ABSTRACT
Child maltreatment is a major public health problem that has a serious impact on the health and development of children. Reports estimate that at least 55 million children in Europe may experience maltreatment during childhood. It may have a significant negative effect on children’s developmental progress and result in dysfunction during their life-course. Preventing child maltreatment would therefore contribute to preventing a much broader range of difficulties in adult life and enhance children’s long-term social development and physical and mental well-being. The financial costs of maltreatment are high for society, warranting increased investment in preventive and therapeutic strategies from early childhood. The key message to policy-makers and members of civil society is that child maltreatment is not inevitable: it can be prevented by taking a multisectoral, multifactorial public health approach to prevention. This handbook sets out the steps that can be taken when developing an action plan to prevent child maltreatment. It is intended for use alongside other resources developed by the WHO Regional Office for Europe and has been developed to assist countries to implement the European child maltreatment prevention action plan 2015–2020.
