Dear WAIMH members,
As we here in the Northern hemisphere are preparing for winter and those of you in Southern hemisphere for summer, it is a good time to look back at year 2013. The year was very active for WAIMH with the Board of Directors having several web-based meetings and the Board and the Office preparing for conquering a whole new territory: the social media. The Office asked for bids from several companies specialized in creating websites and campaigns, and chose from three candidates a Finnish firm called Dicole, who have also worked for the WHO. President Miri Keren, President-Elect Kai von Klitzing, the Office personnel and Dicole had a partly live, partly internetbased workshop about future actions. The prospects are exciting, and we hope to engage more and more of our members and Affiliates in the some-projects during the following years.
Next year will also be busy as the 14th World Congress of WAIMH to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland 14-18th June 2014 is now about six months away. It is our great pleasure to inform you that we received 1155 submissions for the Congress, and the five-day congress will include the latest news from the infant mental health scientific and clinical communities. From looking at the titles and themes of the submitted abstracts, it looks like we will have a wide variety of presentations ranging from neuropsychiatric research studies to innovative clinical interventions, and even interactive workshops.
The review boards did a fantastic job, and all the abstracts have now been reviewed and are soon sent to the Programme Committee members. Our warmest thanks to the review boards!
As additional programme the PreCongress on 13th June includes two interesting workshops, one including also live supervision. There are also three additional training courses held during 12th and 13th June. During the Congress you can also choose to attend additional Master Classes given by topnotch researchers and clinicians from all over the world. The contents of the additional programmes will be updated soon, so please keep visiting the Congress website at https://waimhcongress.org for more information.
The Programme Committee will meet in 9-11 January 2014 in the WAIMH Central Office here in Tampere.Those of you who submitted an abstract will receive a notification of outcome 15th January 2014. After the Programme Committee meeting we will be able to build the actual Congress Programme, so keep visiting the Congress website for more information.
The Early Bird registration extends to Monday 17th March 2014. If you are a WAIMH member when you register for the Congress, you will get a lower fee than non-members.
Last but not least, please renew your WAIMH membership for the year 2014 online at the WAIMH website www.waimh. org. There are two separate categories: the student (45 USD) and professional (75 USD) memberships. As a WAIMH member, you have the privilege of ordering the Infant Mental Health Journal at a special rate. The rates in 2013 are: USA 50 USD, Canada 52.50 USD and International orders 62.50 USD. All journal subscriptions are now also including access to the online IMHJ at the Wiley website. Please, contact the WAIMH Central Office, if you need guidelines or support for the membership renewal (office@waimh.org).
We hope you all would be active in promoting WAIMH and our next World Congress. From our website you can print a WAIMH Flyer and the Congress flyer to your colleagues. Please ask them to join our multidisciplinary and global association for the benefit of infants all over the world, and to come to Edinburgh to meet other colleagues interested and devoted to infant mental health.
Authors
Kaukonen, Pälvi,
Executive Director,
ed@waimh.org,
Puura, Kaija,
Associate Executive Director,
congress@waimh.org,
Sorsa, Minna,
Administrative Assistant,
office@waimh.org
Tampere, Finland
