For those of us in the northern hemisphere, summer is drawing to a close, which signals the gearing up of activities in preparation for ATSA’s 38th Research and Treatment Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, November 6 to 9, 2019. The conference program was released this past July and sessions have been quickly filling up, as is the conference hotel. For those of you who have not yet done so, I encourage you to secure your place in your preferred sessions to avoid disappointment. Your conference chairs, Jacqueline Page and Robert McGrath, have ensured a line-up of exciting plenaries, symposia, workshop presentations, poster sessions, discussion groups, and advanced clinics relating to issues in both victim and perpetrator research and treatment.

Members will recall that there will be an international experts meeting to determine best practices for the treatment of adult men who have engaged in sexual offending behavior at the Université de Montréal (Canada) on September 25-26, 2019. This meeting will be comprised of conference-style presentations as well as discussion sessions. The presentations will be live-streamed and as ATSA members you will be able to connect and view these presentations. The presentation schedule and the instructions to connect to the live streaming of these presentations will be sent directly to each member. Please watch your inbox for the email from ATSA for those details.

Keeping with the international theme, this current issue of your Forum newsletter focuses on the activities of our international members. You will recall that in 2018, ATSA entered into a formal affiliation agreement with the Italian organization CoNTRAS-TI (National Coordination for the Treatment and Research of Sexual Aggression - The Italian Contribution [English translation of Coordinamento Nazionale per il Trattamento dell’Aggressione Sessuale-Testimonianze Italiane]). As a newly formed organization, CoNTRAS-TI held its inaugural conference this past summer in Milan, Italy. Please read the summary of this highly successful conference provided by our Italian colleague Carla Xella, who is also a member of the ATSA international committee.

Further international news in this current issue is provided by Kieran McCartan, our Board international representative. He reviews the results of the international survey on practitioners working with individuals convicted of sexual offences around the world. In addition, readers will be interested in the enlightening article on international perspectives of registration and notification authored by Katherine Gotch, Margaret Anne Laws, Karla Lopez, and Kieran McCartan, which shows that there are different approaches to oversight and monitoring individuals convicted of a sexual offence around the world.

Until we meet in Atlanta in November, I wish you an excellent continuation of your respective contributions toward our shared goal of “A World Without Sexual Abuse”.

Franca Cortoni