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IACAPAP President's Message Jun 2023

By: Professor Luis Augusto Rohde, Professor, Department of Psychiatry,Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Director, ADHD Program , Hospital deClínicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil

I want to take the chance to share with you the exciting progress that our Association made from March, the time of our last Bulletin, to June.  The Bureau was able to finish, as expected, the Strategic Plan for this term, which will be shared with the IACAPAP Executive Committee in our meeting on July 1st. It is important to highlight, as mentioned in the previous Bulletin that we are not “reinventing the wheel”. We will continue endorsing and pursuing several of the goals and initiatives proposed by the previous Bureau in their strategic vision for IACAPAP. I invite you to visit our web page (https://iacapap.org/about/about-iacapap.html) to find the full version and send us your comments and suggestions through our institutional e-mail – info@iacapap.org. This will be available after the IACAPAP Executive Committee meeting revision in the first week of July. We do not have editorial space for going through all the documents, but I would like to call your attention to one aspect:  our IACAPAP Strategic Goals for the 2023-2026 term. They are 1) Catalyse joint initiatives with other organisations to improve child and adolescent mental health awareness and evidence-based care globally; 2) Support leadership and advocacy in child and adolescent mental health for national organisations and individual professionals; 3) Strengthening global training and professional development in child and adolescent mental health; 4) Creating a global child and adolescent mental health ecosystem across culture and language.

A second achievement of the period, strongly correlated with our strategic goals, was that we were able to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Child Mind Institute (CMI) regarding their global child mental health programs. Thus, we now have the guidelines and principles that will govern our partnership to design and develop a series of initiatives that have the potential to substantially impact our field. Indeed, we are beginning to design a first potential area of cooperation, the creation of a “Global Standard for Child and Adolescent Mental Health: A Multidimensional, Culturally Sensitive, and Open-Access Approach”. Expect to hear more about this initiative in the near future.

Third, we were able to move something that was stuck in IACAPAP for at least 15 years. We will proceed with having a core professional conference organiser (PCO) for IACAPAP, at least for our term, leaving the door open for the next Bureau to revisit the decision or to extend the partnership. Thus, we revised CPO Hanser and C-IN proposals and decided to sign the contract with CPO Hanser based on cost-effectiveness analyses of the proposed business models. This was done in the middle of June. Thus, IACAPAP, for the first time in its history, will have a core PCO. As a result of this decision, we had a joint meeting with Professor Marcel Romanos (President of the German Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, DGKJP) and CPO Hanser, defining Germany as the host of the 2026 IACAPAP congress. This meeting also counted with the participation of Prof. Tobias Banaschewski, who kindly agreed to be one of the German leading forces for this meeting.     

Fourth, we had the celebration of the Infant, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Day (WICAMHD) on April 23rd. We promoted a successful webinar coordinated by our past president, Professor Daniel Fung, in partnership with the World Psychiatric Association Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Section (WPA-CAP), the World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH) and the International Society of Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology (ISAPP).  This year's motto was “Stand Against Infant, Child & Adolescent Trauma”. Several national associations have promoted related initiatives in the week before and after the day (see more in this bulletin). 

Fifth, things are also moving smoothly for the preparation of our next World Congress of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions that will take place in Rio in 2024 (see more details in this bulletin and at https://www.iacapap2024.com/ingles/index.php). The registration is already open, and the scientific committee already selected some plenary speakers. We had over 50 applications for the Helmut Remschmidt Research Seminar (HRRS2023) from young CAMH professionals worldwide. The seminar is always in the year before the Congress. This edition will take place in Campos do Jordão, a mountain area close to São Paulo, next September. The meeting is being very well-prepared under the leadership of Professors Petrus Vries and Christina Schwenck to receive the 15 already selected applicants from 11 countries and 4 continents. 

As highlighted, the auditable goals proposed in the previous bulletin were mostly achieved. Since nothing is perfect in life, we were not able to have a meeting between the Bureau and IACAPAP Full and Affiliate Members in the first semester of 2023 to receive suggestions. I apologise for this, and we will work to have it during the next semester.  

The auditable goals up to the next bulletin will be: 

  1. Already have had a meeting between the Bureau and IACAPAP Full and Affiliate members to receive suggestions, or have it scheduled for a date in the second semester; 
  2. Have the first joint initiative with the CMI/SNF Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health in place with an initial involvement of IACAPAP members; 
  3. Have a preliminary program for the World Congress of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions delineated and the final line-up of plenary speakers defined;    
  4. Have the Helmut Remschmidt Research Seminar 2023 (HRRS2023) conducted.  


I hope you all enjoy reading our Bulletin.