Christine Forner – 2019 ISSTD President

It is with such a full heart that I send you all a year end message. I have found this year to be an absolute labour of love. This year we have accomplished so much. We have been able to organize all of the committees and SIG mission & charges and the policies & procedures. We have organized and successfully ran our most well attended annual conference in New York and four other successful regional conferences, including one held in Christchurch, NZ, which helps achieve our international mission statement. We have successfully moved from being an organization that was managed by a third party to managing ourselves. We have achieved financial stability, something that the Board has been working diligently on since 2007. We have been able to put money towards an emergency fund and we have routinely paid down a debt we incurred to ourselves in the mid 2000’s. We have several active funds that support students, clinicians and researchers that are being distributed on a regular basis.

We have spent time in examining our collaborations with other organizations and we are pleased to inform you that we are working on a collaboration with the ISTSS, APA Division 56 and the ISSTD. We are collaborating with our sister organization the ESTD and continue to foster a strong connection. We have made some bold public statements that have received international recognition.

I feel the ISSTD coming together more and more every year. We have a collective vision of humanitarianly addressing the brutality of child abuse, neglect and harm. This work is not for the faint of heart; this is sacred work; this is work driven by empathy and passion. I can clearly see the respect and dignity that our members work from. We know the population of humans we serve deserve better care. And as we all work towards achieving this vision for ourselves, our clients, and the grander human communities we must take notice and reflect in what the ISSTD encourages. To call myself a leader of this group of humans fills me with an enormous amount of pride and deep privilege.

Thank you all for a wonderful year and for the honour of guiding this most amazing ship. Have a wonderful winter break, enjoy your season of celebration and I can’t wait to see what will happing for us in the next decade.

With a universe size amount of gratitude – thank you!

Christa Krüger, 2019 President-Elect

2019 has been a good year for ISSTD. It is a privilege to witness the continued growth of the organization that has been an inspiration and professional home to me for many years. 

Thank you to everybody who contributed to all the progress that happened in 2019. So many little things go into making an organization move forward. Every little bit is important. Every membership renewal contributes to making us grow. Every individual’s participation in a committee helps to keep the momentum of our activities going. Every message that is posted in ISSTDWorld has an effect and an impact on other members. Every reading of an online article in one of our journals helps to grow that journal, and helps to spread the knowledge that is in ISSTD.

I look forward to continue serving ISSTD in 2020, and invite all members to share your ideas about how to help ISSTD grow even more, become even better at what we do, and increase our global influence even further. May our mission statement ring true every day – to seek to advance clinical, scientific, and societal understanding about the prevalence and consequences of chronic trauma and dissociation. May we remain true to our purpose as an organization: We promote research and training in the field of trauma and dissociation. We advance education, training, and professional development of clinicians and researchers in this field. We support research and professional publications regarding complex trauma and dissociation. We provide a collegial community for networking among clinicians, researchers, and other professionals who are interested in the study of trauma and dissociation, and/or the identification, treatment, and prevention of posttraumatic and dissociative disorders.

We work together for a good cause.

Lynette Danylchuk, 2019 Past President

What a year! So much of what all of us have worked on for years is coming to fruition. We are stronger than ever. Our Board, Executive Committee, and membership are all becoming wiser and more confident about what we know and what we have to share with others in our profession, and with the public. I have loved working with the Board – so many intelligent and dedicated people! Over the years, the Officers and Board members have put their collective energy and wisdom into making ISSTD the international leader in research and frontline clinical work with survivors of severe trauma.

ISSTD is an organization that welcomes both the long-term experienced professional and the students and emerging professionals. There’s something here for all of us, and our working together is beneficial not only to us, but to all the people impacted by the work we do.

It has been such an honor to work with this Board and Executive Committee. It’s been a gift of love. ISSTD has been there for me for decades, helping me learn what I needed to learn to help the people who came into my office. All those amazing people have been helped by ISSTD, even if they didn’t know that.

May you all have a great holiday, and may this new year bring blooms to all the seeds you’ve been planting in your mind and soul. Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!