A personal note from the ESLA Chair

Dear friends and colleagues of ESLA, 

We want to start this newsletter with a personal note from the ESLA president, Norma Camilleri:

Dear members!

Seems like yesterday that we cheered welcome to 2022, and here we are wrapping up the year and gearing up for 2023. This year has indeed been a very busy one for ESLA with the Congress, organisation of webinars, numerous meetings with various stakeholders on a European level and beyond, building new connections with policymakers, institutions and other professional organisations, working on new projects and much more. All this was carried out in line with the mandate that you, our members, gave us at the last General Assembly. We are very grateful for all the feedback and support you give us. Thank you to all the volunteers who form part of our various Task Forces and teams, to my fellow members of the Board (Fofi, Ellianna, Pino, Blazenka, Sahra and Raluca) and to our fantastic administrators Theresa and Gianmatteo! We look forward to sharing with you more exciting news in the coming months! ESLA is strongly committed towards taking our profession to new heights in Europe, and this includes being of support to those countries where the Speech Language therapy profession faces several challenges or is not yet budding. Our work has a huge impact on the quality of life of individuals with communication and swallowing disorders. United we can make a difference for all. We look forward to continue working with you all! During this festive period I hope you will find time to rest and enjoy the company of your loved ones. I wish you all a Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays and positivity and energy to face whatever 2023 has in store for you! 

Il-Milied it-Tajjeb u s-sena t-Tajba

Norma

And some language-specific wishes from the rest of the ESLA board and Administration Team

From Fofi Constantinidou & Ellianna Mantaka-Brinkmann in Greek: “Kala Christougena ke kali chronia!”

From Giuseppe Mancini & Gianmatteo Farabolini in Italian: ”Tanti auguri di buon natale e felice anno nuovo!”​

From Blazenka Brozovik in Croatian: "Sretan Božić i sretna nova godina!"

From Sahra Mengal in Danish: “God jul og et godt nytår!”

From Raluca Trifu in Romanian: “Crăciun fericit și un an nou plin de bucurie!”

From Theresa Bloder in German: “Frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes neues Jahr!"

ESLA 2022 RECAP:

This year has been a busy one and a lot has been happening. Now that 2022 is coming to an end, we want to take the time to give you an overview of what ESLA has been up to recently. 

In January we said Goodbye to our Administrator Hazel Roddam (UK, RCSLT) who had been supporting the ESLA Board for several months and who had been involved in ESLA (and previously CPLOL) for an even longer period of time. On this occasion, we’d once again like to thank Hazel for her commitment and her outstanding work for the association. At the same time we welcomed three new Administrators to share our administrative responsibilities. Anna Hockley (UK, RCSLT) - Administrator for Board Matters, Theresa Bloder (AT, logopädieaustria) - Administrator for External Correspondence, and Gianmatteo Farabolini (IT) - Administrator for Social Media & the ESLA website. When Anna left us in May 2022, Theresa took over her duties. 

Additionally, ESLA launched three new Task Forces (TFs) this year: The Awareness Materials TF, The Comparative Data & EU Funds TF, and the Common Training Framework TF. 

Like every year, on March 6th, we celebrated the European SLT day on the topic of “Speech and Language Therapy across the lifespan: the value and impact of a scientific profession” with a talk by Dr. Hazel Roddam.

After having to postpone and reschedule our 11th ESLA Congress due to Covid-19, thanks to the untiring efforts of our Congress TF (Jenta Slujimers, Heike Münch, Claudia Graf, and Mark Jayes) we were finally able to host it in beautiful Salzburg, Austria from the 26th until the 28th of May this year. This year’s congress on the topic of “New Frontiers in Speech and Language Therapy: Advancing Practice, Research, and Education” was special in the sense that it was organised as a hybrid event, inviting in-person and onsite attendees to join numerous talks and posters over the course of 3 days. Preceding the congress, the SLPhD network hosted two workshops with the titles “Life as an SLP researcher” & “How to disseminate, communicate and sell my research effectively”. 

Following the Congress, on May 29th, ESLA annual General Assembly took place. Finishing off the 2019-2022 mandate, we said Goodbye to Board member Jenta Slujimers. During the Board elections for the 2022-2025 mandate, Norm Camilleri was re-elected as chair of the ESLA Board, Fofi Constantinidou as Deputy Chair, Ellianna Mantaka-Brinkmann as General Secretary, Giuseppe Mancini as Treasurer and Blazenka Brozovic as Board member responsible for Professional Education. Sahra Mengal was elected Board member responsible for ESLA’s Communication strategy, and Raluca Trifu was elected Board member responsible for the 2024 Congress. ESLA also welcomed one new full member (Spain) and one new observer member (Armenia).

In our webinar in June, Prof. Kakia Petinou, Chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, School of Health Sciences, Cyprus  University of Technology, talked about “Neurobiological bases of autism and its impact on early intervention”. 

At the end of September, the ESLA Board met in Athens, Greece, where we had enriching and fruitful discussions. It was the first in-person Board Meeting for the two new Board members, Raluca and Sahra.

Another interesting webinar was held by Prof. Dr. Youri Maryn in October entitled “Clinical Voice Acoustic: from Recordings to Analysis”. 

Last but not least, the fourth webinar of our 2022 Professional Development Webinar Series was held by Marleen D'hondt in December on the topic of “That amazing first 6 months: Supporting oral feeding & communication in (ex)preterm and fragile infants”. 

We’d like to thank all our speakers who presented their inspiring work and shared their knowledge with all of us! Furthermore, many thanks go to our hard working SLT Day & Webinar TF (Blazenka Brozovic
Raffaella Citro, Daniela Vassallo, Maria Kyriakou-Solomonidou, Raluca Trifu), through our Professional Development  Webinar Series, for the first time ever, ESLA was able to generate some additional revenue beyond membership fees.

Finally, 2022 was a year of new connections for ESLA. We were able to establish several fruitful collaborations with other organisations that represent our profession or related fields. Together with IALP, for instance, ESLA is working on enticing SLT as a  career. Recently, the ESLA-COTEC collaboration award has been launched. It encourages OTs and SLTs from all over Europe to present their collaborative practice. 16 applications have been received and the winner will be announced in a joint event in early 2023. ESLA is also involved in the Ukraine cluster. Together with IALP and Communication Therapy International, we are continuously looking into ways of how to be of service to Ukrainian SLTs and Ukrainian civilians with communication/swallowing disorders.

ESLA 2023 OUTLOOK

2022 was a year full of events and changes. We can’t wait to resume our duties after the holiday season!

In 2023, we still have plenty of goals to achieve. For example, we want to continue to grow as an association in order to represent and promote our profession on a political level from a united European perspective. By further pursuing the Common Training Framework, ​​we continue to strive to raise and safeguard the minimum standards of the profession. 

Our next General Assembly will be held in March 2023 in Brussels, Belgium - a symbolic venue -  as ESLA now more than ever aims to be closer to policy makers and other political stakeholders. The Board has already established some contacts with the European Parliament and the European Commission and we intend to strengthen/deepen these bonds to further promote our profession. 

In 2023, we will organise another four webinars for our Professional Development Webinar, inviting researchers and clinicians to share their expertise on different SLT-related topics. Find a list of all 2023 ESLA webinars below (and make sure to mark your calendars): 

1. Saturday 11th March 2023: European SLT Day: "Speech and language therapists' roles in critical care and emergency medicin" held by Dr Jackie McRae, FRCSLT FHEA;
2. Thursday 22nd June 2023; 
3. Thursday 5th October 2023;
4. Thursday 30th November 2023.

Remember that webinar attendance is free for our members! 

Related to our Education and Profession, we will continue celebrating other SLT- related awareness days. Follow us on social media for more content!

Last but not least, we are working hard for the 12th ESLA Congress that will be held in 2024.

Stay tuned for more information soon!