Research areas

My research is embedded within child psychotraumatology with the overall purpose of increasing the possibility of timely identification of traumatized children and allocation of appropriate treatment. For that I focus on:

• Validation of developmentally sensitive psychological assessment measures for especially young children and the development and validation of a new, standardized, play-based story stem measure, the Odense Child Trauma Screening (OCTS) for children aged 4-8 years.
• Examination of the validity of ICD-11 PTSD and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) in children of different developmental levels.
• Research in practice: Developing a national assessment battery for the Danish Children Centers (‘Barnáhus’) and generating a national database of psychological measures of children exposed to abuse.
• Interventions for traumatized children: Overview of effects of various treatment methods and development of projects focusing on developmentally sensitive, evidence-based interventions for traumatized children.
• Making my research work in practice: Translation and application of research; implementation of valid and reliable, evidence-based trauma-informed assessment in Denmark and internationally and quality development of trauma-focused interventions for children in Denmark.