European Project SERENA Receives funding from Horizon Europe

The project on the detection of child abuse, in which Universidade Lusófona’s HEI-Lab  is participating, has received funding from Horizon Europe.

The HEI-Lab team, part of the SERENA project — Assessing and improving access to health and social care Services for children RENdered vulnerable by Abuse — will be led by Diogo Lamela, one of our researchers at HEI-Lab.

The main goal of SERENA is to improve the detection of child abuse, minimize its recurrence and severe consequences, as well as reduce its impact on victims, families, and society. To achieve this, SERENA will conduct European-wide research on the processes for care  in health and social services, identify barriers and inequalities in the access of  these services before and after the recognition of abuse, and evaluate the financial impact of this abuse in society. Based on these findings, SERENA will develop and disseminate EU-level recommendations to accelerate and improve the detection of child abuse and optimize these processes  to improve short- and long-term outcomes for individuals and society.

Our team at HEI-Lab will actively participate in the participatory synthesis of conclusions on the care needs of abused children, as well as in the formulation of recommendations for healthcare professionals and policymakers, which are among the project's key outcomes.