Doctor Susan Spence, professor emeritus of Griffith University in Australia, has been awarded the 2016 Aitana Award. Aitana Award is awarded to recognize a lifetime career of meritorious achievement and outstanding to the development of child and adolescent clinical psychology. Over the past 35 years, Dr. Spence has been dedicated to the prevention and treatment of anxiety disorders and depression in children and adolescents. Among her most important contributions highlights the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS), which has been translated into 28 languages. She is pioneer in the implementation of Internet-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (iCBT) for the treatment of anxiety and depression of child and adolescent (Brave Program). In 2009, she was awarded the Ian Campbell Memorial Prizein Clinical Psychology. She has recently been made an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2016 Australia Day Honours List in recognition of her contribution to child clinical psychology.

The 2016 Aitana Award will be delivered in Barcelona on November 19 during the closing ceremony of the congress, in which she will hold the lecture "Preventing Depression in Youth - Challenges and Future Directions”.