School of Social Work Professor Jeffrey Edleson has been appointed to the planning committee for the Forum on Global Violence Prevention of Violence Against Women and Children. The forum is being developed by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

The forum will hold six two-day workshops in Washington, D.C., and publish a similar number of reports over the next three years on strategies and policies for preventing violence. The first workshop will be held in late January 2011 and will focus on incidence and prevalence of violence against women and children worldwide. The second, held in spring 2011, will focus on the social and economic costs of global violence against women and children. Edleson is helping develop a focus on child exposure to violence that includes family, school, community, political and war exposures.

The Institute of Medicine is an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public. It is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.