ESCIF 2021

Congress 2021

Dear Colleagues!

We hope that this newsletter finds you well and healthy. Although the pandemic seems to be under control in most European countries, the organisation of meetings in person and related travelling is still difficult. However, as you can read below, the ESCIF board is convinced that the congress and the ESCIF assembly of delegates can be held as planned. Also, in this newsletter, you can read about the new ESCIF Forum. The ESCIF board is looking forward to your registration for our events.

The new deadline for the registration to the ESCIF congress

The topic of this year’s congress is the “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)”. The congress is held from Wednesday, 25th to Friday, 27th August 2021. Although the information on travelling restrictions are changing frequently, we would highly appreciate is you would register for the congress as soon as possible. Until the deadline of Monday, 21st June 2021 your registration will have no financial consequences if you or the organising committee has to cancel the congress due to the Corona situation.

 Congress Programme

The program consists of a variety of topics related to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The Keynote held by Prof. Dr. Markus Schefer on Wednesday will give you an introduction to the Implementation of the CRPD in European countries. The first presentation on Thursday morning will focus on barriers of participation and the implication to social relations in different European countries, followed by a presentation of the Alternative Report to the CRPD in Slovenia. After a coffee break, Switzerland's health system response to rehabilitation needs and rights of people with spinal cord injury will be presented. And finally, a court case against the largest order of railway carriage in Switzerland by the Swiss umbrella organisation “Inclusion Handicap” will be presented. In the afternoon, workshops will be held, which will be wrapped-up in a paper after the congress. Finally, on Friday morning the ESCIF assembly will get together and the first results of the workshops will be presented. For further information and for registration see www.escif.org (Deadline is Monday, 21st June 2021). Please be aware to register via the new website www.escif.org. (You should receive a “document sent” notification in the web browser.)

Call for abstract and member's input

We are looking forward to receiving your abstract to present a poster or your Member’s Input. If you would like to show a poster during the congress about your research or project, please send a PDF of your poster to secretary@escif.org. Also, the member’s input is highly welcome. It can be a short presentation of your organisation’s interesting project, event or debate. The form of the member's input is quite open and can be a 10 minutes oral session or a poster. If you would like to present your member’s input, please send your documents to secretary@escif.org. The deadline to submit poster abstracts and member’s input is 30th June 2021.
 
20 participants in 1st ESCIF Forum

The 1st ESCIF Forum on Monday, 29th March was very successful. ESCIF president, Stefan Jorlev, and project manager, Kevin Schultes, presented details of the Help Alliance project and the impact it generated in the SCI community in Europe. Following the presentation, there was a discussion around and several participants expressed their gratitude to ESCIF and the project responsible.

Registration for 2nd ESCIF Forum

Work is a key outcome of rehabilitation in SCI. Therefore, the 2nd ESCIF Forum will be on Monday, 7th June, at 6 pm about the publication: “Employment among people with spinal cord injury in 22 countries across the world: results from the International Spinal Cord Injury (InSCI) Community Survey”. The presentation will compare employment in different European countries and we are looking forward to get background knowledge by Co-Author Urban Schwegler. Urban Schwegler is Ph.D. and Group leader at Swiss Paraplegic research.

Registration link:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcrcOCurjItHN37QacXcISwB-00u5kPASCy

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information to join the meeting.

A 3rd ESCIF Forum will be organised in the autumn. If you have ideas for presentations or research topics of interest for the SCI community, let us know.

For the Executive Board 

Stefan Opresnik Jorlev
ESCIF President