President Message - 2015
A great deal has happened within Horatio in the last 12 months. The new Executive Officer Team have been working on the organisation’s infrastructure, the Board on projects, papers and Vision 2121. The 2014/15 Action Report for the year can be found in the Members Section. At the General Assembly held in Lisbon at the Horatio congress several key decisions were made that will affect the way Horatio is run.
- It was agreed to move the annual congresses and Festival to the Springtime, away from the heavily congested Autumn schedule. We hope by doing this we will attract a larger audience to our events giving more people the opportunity to experience these great psychiatric and mental health nursing occasions. The next Festival will be held in May 2017, in Malta
- As a consequence of this we have had to move the General Assembly to springtime meetings, with the consequence that existing Board members whose term of office would have expired in Autumn 2016 will now sit till the Spring of 2017. This is because our constitution states we must hold Board elections at a General Assembly.
- Each year we will be holding bi-annual meetings in different European cities, with Board meetings and general Assemblies accompanied by national organisation’s symposium delivered by the Horatio Board members. The current Diary of events will soon be published in the Calendar section of the website.
- Retiring Board member, Prof. Michael Lohr from Germany and Dr Roland van de Sande from The Netherlands, will take over as co-chairs of the Horatio European Expert Panel of psychiatric Nursing
- The Action Plan for the next 12 months has been developed and agreed and will be published in the members section
- Elections for the Board were held with the retirement of two members and a new member from Germany, Susanna Flansburg, elected.
- Issues concerning the current constitution are being amended.
- Negotiations are underway to accredit all Horatio events. This will mean that in future all delegates and speakers will receive CET points for their attendance.
- The full proceedings from the GA can be found in the minutes within the Members section
The full proceedings from the GA can be found in the minutes within the Members section
Horatio is marking its 10th year in operation by starting a Fellowship scheme which will honour individuals fro around Europe who have made a significant contribution to psychiatric and mental health nursing during their career. These individuals, nominated by their own national organisations, will receive their awards at the bi-annual festivals and will become life individual members of Horatio. In this way we can celebrate the work and activities of some of our finest nurses.
It is with great pride that I start my second year as the President of Horatio. With the help of the Board and its Executive Officers we hope to deliver on our promise to make Horatio more supportive of its members, more active within both European and National mental health politics and the first port of call for all those wishing to enlist the work and activities of psychiatric and mental health nurses in their projects, policy activities and professional development.
Martin Ward
President - Horatio European Psychiatric Nurses
HORATIO Congress Report - Lisbon 8th - 10th October, 2015
Horatio, in conjunction with the College of Mental Health Nursing of the Portuguese Nursing Association, celebrated another successful event in the wonderful capital city of Portugal, Lisbon. Three days of keynote speakers, symposia, concurrent sessions and a very thought provoking film from Norway culminated on the 10th October at celebrations for World Mental Health day. What has become increasingly obvious is that no matter where you practice mental health/psychiatric nursing in Europe all of us appear to face similar problems and work challenges. It is not the problems that are different, it is often the way that we deal with them – our unique national decision making processes. In Lisbon delegates and speakers spent a great deal of time sharing their ideas and developing new approaches to old problems. The theme of the event was the ‘Art and Science of Mental Health Nursing’ and it became obvious as the event wore on that whilst the science is there to guide our actions, both as a profession and as individuals, the reality is that it is the ART of caring that ultimately makes the difference in patient and carers lives.
Many thanks to all who took part in this great event, to those who organised it and those managed it to perfection. We look forward to seeing you all at the next Horatio event in 2017.
Martin Ward
President - Horatio European Psychiatric Nurses
The Death of Pedro Montellano
On the Friday before he was due to give the opening keynote at the Horatio congress in Lisbon, we learnt of the tragic death of Pedro Montellano. Pedro, an agricultural engineer by background, and a mental illness sufferer himself, had dedicated the last few years of his life to working with organisations in Europe to promote mental health caring. He was an active member of the European Plan and his main theme was developing quality assurance measures within mental health services. Portuguese himself he was due to return to work in Portugal on their strategic plan for mental health. His loss is all the greater for the Portuguese as they have lost a great national figure and mental health advocate. From all of us at Horatio we send our heartfelt sympathies to Pedro’s family. RIP
Becoming a member of HORATIO
Many of you who have been associated with Horatio over the years will notice that our membership profile is changing. The ‘backbone’ of our work involves the national representative organisations around Europe who support mental health nurses. However, increasingly we have been joined by other organisations and individuals who wish to become part of the Horatio experience.
Horatio has three membership levels:
- Organisational, National Organisations representing psychiatric and mental health nurses.
- Associates, institutions or organisations (such as libraries and universities), both from within the EU and worldwide.
- Individual, single person membership. These can be from persons whose own national body is part of Horatio, as well as those who are independent, from within the EU and worldwide.
We are encouraging memberships from all of these tiers. Our members only section is being revamped and will soon contain a variety of materials that only members of Horatio can access. Additionally, we will be announcing new conference delegate fees for Horatio events, including the festivals. Membership benefits, fees and details of application can be found by accessing the Members tab at the top of the Home page and clicking on Membership.
We hope you, or your organisation, decides to join us.
Martin Ward
President - Horatio European Psychiatric Nurses
News
News Archive
continue to the News Archive >>
