Welcome to the Safe & Sound Conference on child and family wellbeing for a sustainable future! The conference features many opportunities for intellectual exchange across disciplines, academia, and practice. 

The conference addresses the intersections of child and family wellbeing through a focus on childhood adversity, mental health, and sustainable development at the individual, social, and global levels. Our aim is to seek and co-create knowledge that protects and enhances healthy child development, and skills of treatment and support when mental health problems arise. We want to share and use existing knowledge that foster happy children, caring parents, and responsible citizens – and specify the role and contributions from psychology and other health and social sciences.

We acknowledge our deep connection to and dependency on Mother Earth, and how human activity is threatening the very basis of our existence. Child and family wellbeing are affected by the state of the world in many ways, including by natural disasters, conflicts, labour markets, poverty, migration, and mobility. Geopolitics and history may well influence life in the local neighbourhood and family dynamics. The UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) clearly describe the need for a holistic understanding.

The conference is organized around four main topics:

1.   Neurodevelopment and developmental disorders

2.   Early childhood development (ECD), nutrition and caregiving

3.   Child and family well-being – urbanisation and environmental challenges

4.   Teaching and promoting mental health through innovative communication and technology

The Safe & Sound conference is part of a Norwegian Partnership Programme for Global Academic Cooperation (NORPART) funded by HK-dir, the Norwegian directorate for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education. The general aim of the NORPART programme is to enhance the quality of higher education in Norway and developing countries through academic cooperation and student mobility. The aim of the Safe & Sound project is to strengthen education in psychology and build a partnership between Norway and Vietnam as a base for academic exchange, the advancement of intercultural learning, sound practice, and joint research – to the benefit of future generations and sustainable development.