Winter 2021 ENOTHE President Message

Dear members, 

Firstly, we would like to wish you very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, sending best wishes to all of you, your families, close and loved ones and your communities.

Sometimes it is hard to remember when exactly the last time we saw each other face to face. It has been several years now since we have been dealing with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.  2019 sounds long time ago, doesn’t it? Let us hope 2022 will bring many new and effective solutions whether we meet in person, hybrid or fully online and permit us to build on experiences together. 

We want to express special gratitude to all members, particularly those who have contributed during the year by participating in the online activities that were organized.  These activities include; ENOTHE Webinars; surveys; ENOTHE’s first Summer School; the COTEC-ENOTHE Congress; Pre-General Assembly workshops and the General Assembly; ECOLE’s Think Tank; feedback moments and instant replies to our calls, emails and inquiries. Thank you! Together we realised ENOTHE is more alive and active than ever.

Despite the huge desire and need to meet in person, the ENOTHE Board has continued to work online. We have to respect the variety in international regulations regarding the pandemic with the diversity of countries represented. All this has meant it has unfortunately, still been impossible to meet in person.  In December, we had our Board intensive meeting sessions online, over several days (10th, 11th 12th and 13th).  We welcomed our new board members. It was a great pleasure to rely on the expertise of Caroline Fischl, Vanessa Röck and Vanessa Rozalina, who joined and strengthened our team. During our meeting, we have discussed the priorities for the action plan 2022-2023. The developments of ECOLE will include the important start of the Re-Tuning process.  We also hope to see the development of new calls on projects including student projects, webinars, and proposals of new teaching competence development courses.

Alongside the above developments, ENOTHE will work intensively with a new plan for a marketing and public relations strategy, focused on and fit for future generations.  The financial sustainability strategy including fee structures will be considered together with our auditor team. ENOTHE will continue and professionalise consultancy on developing curricula in occupational therapy across European countries. Additionally, a new capacity building course for and by members on curriculum development will be released in 2022. This will be made suitable and reflect a countries’ requests, contexts and will be based on former experiences (e.g. the UKROTHE project).

ENOTHE will foster the P4Play Doctorate project and continue supporting this brilliant project that promotes third level competencies of the profession. In revising the TUNING competences all those colleagues who contributed so much in the past to all three levels will be approached to (re)join the task forces.

The second edition of the successful ENOTHE Summer Student Course is expected. In the coming months, the Board will work intensively on the ENOTHE Annual meeting in Georgia, planned for October 2022. Due to the country’s current pandemic circumstances, we expect the meeting to have a hybrid character, with inclusive possibilities for all who want to join and access the event. 

In January we will publish our Winter Newsletter in which we look back on 2021, and forward to 2022 sharing some great updates from ENOTHE, Occupational Therapy Europe and of course our active members. We look forward to creating the future with you, in the most viable, inclusive and sustainable way possible. We are there to support you in a challenging new year! 

Please, make sure that you give attention to our notifications and check the updates on our website! 

Warmest regards,

on behalf of all ENOTHE Board members and Office

Soemitro Poerbodipoero

President ENOTHE