Bonita F. Stanton, MD, Consulting Editor

Most clinically active pediatricians, irrespective of their subspecialty and/or geographic or socioeconomic site of practice, are likely to encounter children who have been abused. The challenge will be in recognizing the abuse and responding appropriately, in a manner that safeguards the child and other children in the family, and offers the family support, guidance, and respect.

Drs Dubowitz and Leventhal have spent their careers working with children and impacted families and institutions. Their approach, predicated on the power of knowledge, understanding, and compassion, empowers the pediatrician to appropriately recognize, explore, refer, and remain involved with impacted children and families. While unambiguously maintaining the primacy of the impacted child in their approach, the authors of the articles in this volume empower pediatricians to recognize vulnerable children, seek information as necessary from families and children in a gentle, caring, and nonthreatening manner, and act appropriately based on this information. As this volume is written for practicing pediatricians, several articles deal explicitly with preventing child abuse through appropriate counseling of families before abuse occurs and engaging with children and families in the aftermath of abuse.