On behalf of the Program Committee, it gives me great pleasure to invite you to submit your work to the 18^th World Association for Infant Mental Health Congress to be held in Dublin from 15-19 July 2023. We welcome your submissions and are excited to find a place for them in the Congress programme. The Congress theme is Early Relationships Matter: Advancing Practice, Policy and Research in Infant Mental Health. We are keen to hear about how your work is advancing clinical practice, public policy, and research in infant mental health and how this is helping to grow our understanding of the importance of early relationships and why they matter. Additionally, we are interested to know about the work you are doing to train and support the next generation of Infant Mental Health professionals, and how you are advocating for infants, their health and wellbeing and that of those that care for them. Your contributions are vital to promoting WAIMH’s aims, and we look forward to you sharing them with us and your colleagues.

We look forward to reacquainting and updating ourselves with the work of those who contribute regularly to WAIMH Congresses and warmly welcome those who are new to the WAIMH community. If you work with infants, young children, their parents, carers, and families, and strive to enhance their development and well-being, we encourage you to share your work, whether you are a mental health professional or work in related clinical and research fields that share these concerns.

A rich Congress programme is already taking shape, with four wonderful plenary speakers, who will present cutting-edge research, novel clinical interventions, and emerging empirical evidence. Their work highlights the diversity and complexity of infant mental health practice as biological, psychological, and social processes interact with trauma and early adversity and resilience and recovery. In addition to our keynote presentations, we will have a range of exciting state of the art lectures, masterclasses, invited symposia and workshops.

We eagerly anticipate your contributions, to ensure that we have a stimulating, vibrant and inclusive Congress. In addition to welcoming your submissions to the scientific programme for this Congress, we also welcome your attendance in Dublin. WAIMH Congresses are always wonderful and enriching opportunities to meet in person, share knowledge and experiences and connect with colleagues from around the world.

We encourage you to watch for upcoming announcements about the Congress programme and look forward to receiving your contributions and meeting you in Dublin!

Elisabeth Hoehn
Program Committee Chair