“Major advances have been made in the assessment and treatment of traumatic stress in the past 20 years.

Despite these advances, the vast majority of those affected by traumatic stress still do not receive any type of services or care.”

The opening sentences on the flyer of the rapidly approaching conference of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies ask for action. The meeting is one of the biggest yearly events in the field and it goes well beyond studies only; it includes many clinical workshops and contributions by journalists, policymakers, and (other) advocates. The program looks promising, especially the parts on outreach and innovation, its focus on mental health instead of mental disorders, and its keynote speakers.

And this year there will be more opportunities to follow the conference from afar! The hashtag is #istss and hopefully we’ll have a good group of people tweeting about their insights, available online resources, and shared interests (maybe next year we’ll welcome our first Twitter-born ISTSS initiative/project…?). The society tweets as @ISTSSnews and is also building its presence on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Are you at the meeting and would you like to learn how you can make best use of Twitter for your work? Come join us on Thursday (noon – 1.15, Diamond Salon 3, abstract 1211)! You can already start following ISTSS members (even when you don’t use Twitter yourself) via this link.

I hope some plans of action will be born or furthered next week. Let’s bridge those service provision gaps together.