 Adapting to ‘Living with COVID-19’

As the situation of the COVID-19 has fortunately gotten better with the implementation of vaccinations all over Europe, the European Federation of Psychology Students’ Associations (EFPSA) has started organising its activities as they were organised before the pandemic. With Europe opening its borders and becoming more flexible and safe to hold in-person events, we started organising our events again in person. Other activities, such as our social impact campaigns, have also started running normally again. We are happy that we have been able to organise in-person events as well as to adapt them to hybrid to be more inclusive. Since adapting to hybrid is not an easy task, we are still learning new ways to incorporate.

 Past Events

Research Summer School

The Research Summer School (RSS) was the first hybrid event of EFPSA. The event took place in Croatia in July where 33 participants, five supervisors, two trainers joined in-person; and one participant joined online. As the event was hybrid, some workshops were given by speakers who joined online. Even though organising RSS as a hybrid event was very challenging at the beginning, the whole event was a success!

• ‘The Influence of Intolerance of Uncertainty and Need for Cognitive Closure in Extremism’
• ‘Investigating the Effectiveness of E-Mental Health Interventions when Implemented in Routine Care’
• ‘An E-Mental Health Programme Targeting Anger Regulation’
• ‘Are We Smarter Without Smartphones?: The Curious Case of Instagram Usage on Working Memory of Young Adults’
• ‘E-Mental Health 101: Online Mental Health Intervention Program (e-MHIP) Development and Efficacy Assessment’  

Each team will present the result of their research at the next EFPSA Congress. We are looking forward to seeing their presentations and results.

Train the Trainers (TtT) Summer School 2021

Participants shared that the event was very demanding, challenging them to reflect on their development and skills but at the same time incredibly rewarding. 

First In-Person Board Meeting

Even though the meeting was hybrid (as two out of eight Board members were not there in-person), it was possible to discuss many crucial topics and prepare for the upcoming months of our mandate. As part of our team building, we went on a one-day excursion to Bruges and tasted all kinds of Belgian delicacies (‘stoofvlees met friet’, ate some chocolate, bought Belgian beers, tried both the ‘Brusselse-’ as well as the ‘Luikse wafel’, etc.). We enjoyed our trip to the wonderful medieval city!

 Upcoming Events

The Joint Executive Board & Member Representatives (EB&MR) Meeting 2021

The Joint EB&MR Meeting marks the middle of EFPSA’s mandate. This is the moment that the whole Working Community of EFPSA come together during a seven-day event. The working programme is filled with statutory meetings (e.g. General Assemblies, Strategic Planning.), working sessions, workshops, training sessions, and so on. Besides the working programme, we also have a social and cultural programme planned for the Working Community. In these scheduled events, the Working Community of EFPSA will have the chance to get to know each other and familiarise themselves with the culture of the hosting country.  

We are especially looking forward to this years’ edition as it will be the first in-person Joint EB&MR since 2019! Due to the COVID-19, we had to move our meeting completely online in 2020. However, this year we will be organising a hybrid one. The meeting will take place in Malta from the 29th of October until the 5th of November 2021. We look forward to finally meeting our members in-person!

The EFPSA Conference 2021

The upcoming EFPSA Conference will take place in Porto, Portugal from the 24th until the 28th of November 2021. The theme of the conference is ‘Community Psychology: Breaking Walls, Building Bridges’.

 Mental Health Project 

The Mental Health Project is an initiative created by EFPSA during the mandate of 2020-2021. It is an online event in celebration of the World Mental Health Awareness Day (10th of October). The project has started with only four participating student organisations but now embodies a collaboration of 11 student organisations from all over the world that together represent nearly 22 million higher education students.

 Advocacy August  

As the name suggests, EFPSA focused on Advocacy during the month of August. The Advocacy Team took over EFPSA’s social media and shared with our students what the word ‘advocacy’ means and how the team works. The Advocacy Team shared their Policy Papers, introduced their work and educated others on the process of advocacy.  

 Study & Travel Abroad (STA) Webinar Week

Study & Travel Abroad (STA) Webinar Week was an online 5-day event, taking place from the 18th to the 22nd of October on Zoom. The event was meant for students interested in studying abroad. The event consisted of panel discussions, namely two EFPSA Alumni Career Path sessions and a panel discussion about studying abroad, as well as two training sessions and a workshop. During the workshop, participants were able to learn how to effectively write a CV while during the training sessions they learned about time management and how to ace a job interview.

 EFPSA Week

EFPSA Week was an online 8-day event that took place from the 14th to the 21st of October. There were two time slots per day. Every Office and Service got a chance to present themselves and their activities on YouTube  live stream while followers could also ask questions.

 EFPSA Day

EFPSA Day takes place in the first week of December. It is a fun day when Member Representatives promote EFPSA on a national and local level. Psychology students get a chance to talk about their EFPSA experience, share information about EFPSA and the upcoming Congress. They also organise many different activities including open training sessions, discussion with Alumni and / or active EFPSA members, and a video made by students of the member organisations with particular topics.

 Exchange Malta-Austria

EFPSA Exchange is the opportunity for students to visit another European country and meet with local psychology students.EFPSA Services such as the Study & Travel Abroad helps Member Representatives connect with other organisations within EFPSA and provides guidelines for organising an exchange. Both academic and social programs are usually incorporated within the programme. The first part of the Exchange Malta-Austria was organised in October when the Austrian students visited Malta and the second part will happen in December, in which the Maltese students will visit Austria. The other three EFPSA Exchange events will be organised in the upcoming months. 

 EFPA Representatives

And last but (definitely!) not least, we worked on improving the positions of the EFPSA Representatives in EFPA. We created an official Role Description and Knowledge Transfer documents for new mandates to ensure that new representatives have all the necessary onboarding information. We also had several meetings throughout the mandate to share experiences and support each other. We want to strengthen our collaboration with EFPA and are awaiting new EFPSA Representatives to join us soon.

By
Deianara Couwet
President of EFPSA (European Federation of Psychology Students' Associations)