From the Kauppi Campus - News from WAIMH Central Office

Dear WAIMH members,

The election process for a new Board member is under way. We have four excellent candidates to the WAIMH Board: Astrid Berg, Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Nancy Suchman and Jean Wittenberg. All WAIMH members (2011) can participate in the electronic voting, that is taking place 9-29th January, 2012. By the end of January we will know who the new Board member is. Please use your possibility to be part of the election of the new Board member!

At the Cape Town Congress the Board of Directors will elect a new President Elect from among the Board members. In February the Board members can express their willingness to serve as a President Elect. After that there will be an advisory vote for all WAIMH members 2011/2012, and you can express your preference for the next President of WAIMH. In Cape Town the Board makes the decision according to the viewpoints of the members, and after listening to the Nominating Committee guidelines.

The process will continue with the election of the new President-Elect. According to the new bylaws (accepted in 2008) all current Board members can express their willingness to serve WAIMH. We will arrange The current Board will elect the new President-Elect in their Board meeting in April, Cape Town

A new WAIMH membership year has started! Please renew your membership, unless you already did so. You can also ask your colleague to become a WAIMH member! The membership benefits are available online at www.waimh.org/Membership.

The Cape Town 13th World Congress will become successful, since we received 416 submissions, and the five-day congress will include the latest news from the infant mental health scientific and clinical communities. The preliminary Congress Programme has been available online since 23rd December. Please note that some of the invited presentations are missing from the preliminary programme that we are currently finalising. The congress includes also Master Classes, and two Pre-Congresses, and other supplementary program. The WAIMH Board is for the first time active in arranging training for local practitioners in the Training Village (look at page 28 in this issue).

If you submitted an abstract, please be aware that the Congress Programme Book preparation is underway, and no changes can be made after 31st Jan, 2012. Please be active, and check all details of your submission are correct online at www.waimh.org, where you can view your submissions.

The Early Bird registration has been extended to Jan 31st, 2012. So you can register at the lower fee still for two weeks. As a WAIMH member you can register at a lower fee than non-members.

The Central Office is happily but busily working on the next World Congress as well as the membership renewals. This means that during the beginning of the year all your messages may not be responded to instantly. After April, and the Cape Town World Congress, we are “back to normal”.

Warm greetings to each of you, and all the best for 2012!

Palvi Kaukonen, Kaija Puura & Minna Sorsa

WAIMH Central Office