Exciting news seem a near regularity in environmental physiotherapy now. And why not. With so much that still needs doing, we need them very much. The latest in the series, effective as of today, is a new partnership with ENPHE – The European Network of Physiotherapy in Higher Education. ENPHE is the leading Knowledge Forum related to Physiotherapy Higher Education in Europe that anticipates trends and forces in the changing society that shape professional practice and education. ENPHE provides an extensive and open Home for collaboration and support to improve educational developments.
Since the beginning of this year, ENPHE has also made sustainable healthcare and environmental physiotherapy one of its core strategic areas and the EPA is excited to partner with ENPHE to advance the development of this urgent new field in Europe and beyond. With over 180 member universities across Europe, this partnership is momentous for the EPT Agenda 2023 alone, growing us to over 240 education institutions collaborating to implement planetary health, environmental and sustainability education into physiotherapy training around the world. In addition to collaborations in education, the partnership with ENPHE will gradually extend into research and practice development in environmental physiotherapy, planetary health and sustainable healthcare, so we are well on course for some exciting and urgent advancements in the field.
Earlier this year, at ENPHE’s spring seminar hosted by Vilnius University in Lithuania, we had a chance to run a workshop on implementing planetary health, environmental and sustainability education into physiotherapy training for ENPHE members.
Filip Maric (PhD)
A/Prof, EPA Founder & Executive Chair
Filip Maric is Associate professor at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and founder of the Environmental Physiotherapy Association. He is interested in the outer rims of healthcare and critical physiotherapy, philosophy, #EnviroPT, environmental post/humanities, planetary health and sea kayaking.
Today and tomorrow, two participants from this workshop – Eva Mengel from Tartu Health Care College, Estonia, and Volcmar Visser from Hogeschool Leiden, Netherlands – and experienced EPT Agenda 2023 collaborator Assistant Professor Steinunn Olafsdottir from the University of Iceland will pass their experience directly on to more members at the ENPHE Conference 2022- Physiotherapy in an Agile World hosted by EPT Agenda 2023 participating institution CESPU in Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal. And better yet, you can follow the ideas that workshop participants will be developing live on the padlet below.
After the workshop, we will share further resources and some more reflections on how it all went here, so this blogpost will additionally be a testing ground for a slightly different kind of dynamic blogging, and the development of a workshop approach that we are planning to offer to interested institutions around the world. Exciting times all around, they really are.
Let’s go #EnviroPT 🌍🌎🌏🚑
For more information about ENPHE we recommend you visit their website, where you can also watch the below video and view and read a lot more.