About Us

 Executive Committee

 

                                                            

Mintaze Kerem Gunel                                               Christine Barber  

    President                                                             Vice President     

                                                                   

                                                     

    Leonor Antonietti                                           Patrick Algoet

Committee Member                                               Treasurer



             

            Marleen D'hondt
                 Secretary 

 

 

 

 



Message from the President

Dear EBTA colleagues and friends,

It is a great honour and responsibility for me to serve as President of the European Bobath Tutors Association (EBTA) for the 2026–2028 term.

EBTA represents a long history, a strong professional community and, most importantly, a shared commitment to children and families. Over many years, we have learned from one another across countries, professions and generations. I believe that this diversity, together with our willingness to question, reflect and continue learning, is one of the greatest strengths of our Association.

As we begin this new term, I would like us to look forward together while remaining connected to the experience and knowledge that have shaped EBTA. Our clinical and educational practice must continue to evolve alongside current scientific knowledge, contemporary understanding of cerebral palsy and allied neurodevelopmental conditions, and the changing needs and priorities of children and families. We should remain open to new evidence, new perspectives and constructive discussion, while continuing to examine and develop our clinical reasoning and educational practice.

For me, clinical reasoning remains at the heart of what we teach and what we do. Our role is to support therapists in learning how to observe, think, question, understand, adapt and make meaningful clinical decisions together with children and families. At the same time, we need to continue reflecting critically on our own educational practice and on how we prepare future generations of Bobath therapists and tutors.

I would like EBTA to remain not only an organisation that supports shared educational standards, but also a community that learns together, questions together and grows together. We are stronger when we work together, share our knowledge and experiences, and remain connected across countries and professions.

Communication will therefore be an important part of the coming years. Our Members Countries’ National Tutors Organizations (NTOs) and their EBTA Contact Persons have a vital role in keeping our member countries connected and ensuring a two-way flow of ideas, experiences and information across our community. Our EBTA Newsletter also provides an important space to share developments, educational experiences, scientific perspectives and news from across our member countries.

I hope that the coming years will bring even stronger communication and collaboration among our member countries, tutors and different professional disciplines. Sharing our experiences, our questions and also our challenges openly will help us learn from each other and strengthen EBTA as a European and international professional community.

We have important work ahead of us, but we also have a strong foundation on which to build. I am very grateful to my colleagues in the Executive Committee and to all members of the EBTA community for their commitment, experience and support.

I look forward to working together over the next two years with openness, curiosity and a shared sense of purpose. And I very much look forward to continuing this journey together and meeting again at the EBTA Congress in Zagreb, Croatia, in 2028.

And, ultimately, the reason behind all our work remains very simple: everything we do is for children and their families.

Best wishes,

Prof. Dr. Mintaze Kerem Günel


President of European Bobath Tutors Association (EBTA)

 

Message from the President (2018-2020)


The Bobath Concept is a living and dynamic concept that promotes the participation, health and well-being of people who have neurological or similar conditions.

EBTA aims to support the development of Bobath Tutors, in order to advance this concept, educate therapists and benefit the children, adults and families that they work with.

 

We the Executive Committee for EBTA, have therefore set the following priorities and actions for our term of office (2018 – 2020):

 

  1. To maintain the integrity of the Bobath Concept and develop it, in accordance with evolving scientific advances.
    • We aim to provide regular meetings/interaction/dialogue between Tutors from different NTOs e.g. annual congress, workshops, working parties, topic specific courses
    • We aim to encourage co-teaching by Tutors from different NTOs
    • We will investigate the possibility of providing a program of specialist courses for tutors to develop their skills to higher levels so as to enhance their teaching.
  1. To strengthen the “Bobath Community” within Europe
    • An Electronic Stamp for the issuing and recording of certificates issued on EBTA recognised courses will be established.
    • A central Database of Bobath Tutors and Bobath trained therapists will be established and maintained
    • Regular communication will take place between the Executive Committee and all NTOs and Bobath Trained Therapists

 

  1. To encourage joint working between teaching teams within a country
    • i.e. to have one representative NTO in any one country

 

  1. To review the role of the Contact person
    • So that the Contact Person is seen as the “voice of the NTO”.  This will support effective and timely communication between parties, helping to move processes forwards with minimal delay.
    • We will develop a “Handbook” for contact persons
    • We will review the Grievance Policy so as to streamline this process and aid Contact People, and indeed all Tutors, in their work

 

  1. To begin to review the Articles of the Association
    • These have been in place for many years and require review and  updating to incorporate changes in policy as well as developments within the organisation and society as a whole.

 

  1. To begin to review the content of courses – and how they are written
    • We will engage in a process of interaction with NTOs to ensure there is uniformity accross EBTA course and that up to date and current  terminology and frameworks are used, that will make course content universally accessible in different environments (NTOs, Universities, etc.)

 

 

The EBTA Executive Committee

Tali Ashkenazi, Liliana Klimont, Patrick Algoet, Kaija Neimi, Christine Barber & Heather Holgate

April 2019 

 

Message from former President Gill Stern (2012 - 2018)

I had the honour and privilege to have been elected President of EBTA at our Biennial Congress in Oulu Finland in 2012. I was re-elected for a second term in Warsaw Poland, 2014 and for a third (and final) term in Porto Portugal September 2016.

EBTA actually stands for the European Bobath Tutors’ Association, although If you Google ‘EBTA’ it comes up with Equine Behaviour and Training Association or the European Brief Therapy Association!

EBTA has as its members the Bobath National Tutor Organisations of 18 countries of Europe-see map on the Home page for details of all our member countries. Some of the countries are those you would expect like the UK, Germany, Belgium and Italy; others are ‘new’ Europeans like Turkey, Croatia and the Czech Republic.

We are a network or community of Bobath teaching teams, comprising over 200 Bobath Tutors, spread the length and breadth of Europe. EBTA exists to set, maintain and update standards of all types of Bobath Courses, as developed by Dr and Mrs Bobath, as well as standards for the training of Bobath Tutors. A special EBTA stamp is placed on each Bobath Certificate which accredits these courses, and confers an internationally recognised status on them. Additionally EBTA has a mandate to encourage and implement research.

The EBTA Executive Committee, is a voluntary body which deals with a variety of issues regarding Bobath Courses in various countries. The drive nowadays towards evidence-based learning and individual national university accreditation systems have led to issues and challenges which have impacted on the curriculum and teaching of Bobath Courses in some European countries.

Over the past several years a selection of tutors from nearly all the teaching teams have met regularly to agree a Core Curriculum for Basic Courses recognised Europe-wide. During this period it became apparent that, although English is the common tongue, we were not all ‘speaking the same language’. Different countries may also use alternative teaching methodologies, which influence how information is presented. Some countries may have differing healthcare systems which influence how they teach and how they value accreditation. More recently a Working Group of tutors representing our member countries has been busy developing a consensus for clearly defining our Concept and our terminology. 

Our members converse and support each other by email, at regular Workshops and Congresses; our Congress is held every two years, hosted each time by a different European country. Congress is always an extremely enjoyable educational and social event, which is also a huge undertaking for the host country. For the past few years Congress has included a special programme for Bobath trained therapists, so you don’t need to be a tutor to attend! 

My vision for this Presidency is to continue to work together with my fellow Tutors to teach and treat using a more consistent terminology to enhance understanding of Bobath concept and therapy within the international medical fraternity. I am confident that Bobath in clinical practice still has much to offer to parents and their children, and EBTA will continue to be in the forefront of projecting that vision and live up to the memory of Dr and Mrs Bobath.

Gill Stern


History of EBTA

by Dr Sarah Capelovitch, former EBTA President and recipient of a Lifetime Achievement award

   

 

 

 

The European Bobath Tutors’ Association (EBTA) was founded in 1971 by five German speaking countries, as an association of Teaching Centres (TC). The attendees were medical doctors, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech & language therapists.

Presidents were elected at meetings which took place every two years. Dr Karel Bobath was the first President elected in Innsbruck, followed by Drs Elspeth Koeng, Barbara Ohrt, Inge Flehming, Bert Touwen, Renate von Arentsschild, F. Alexandre, and Hubert Haberfellner who requested Jennifer Bryce, physiotherapist and Principal of the Bobath Centre, London, to co-chair.

in 1988, at a Tutors Meeting in London, the formative seeds of an International Tutors’ Association were planted and, in 1990, during the Presidency of Dr Ilona Autti Ramo, discussions took place on how best to take this forward. Many years of cross-continental dialogue followed. Dr Tatjana Velickovic who was elected in 1992, convened an International Tutors Working Group in 1993 in Bled, together with her husband Dr Miko Velickovic. Correspondence and telephone calls continued during 1993 and 1994 between Jennifer Bryce (UK), Tatjana Velickovic (Slovenia), Harry Crombag (The Netherlands), Judy Murray (UK) and Sarah Capelovitch (Israel).

Harry Crombag was elected to explore the legal procedures that needed to be undertaken in order to establish an International Organization, and Suzie Dreier (Switzerland) was elected to the position of Secretary.

This working group met a few times to discuss the aims of EBTA, these are now incorporated in the Constitution under Article 3. The constitution was registered and signed by public Notary in Beek (Limburg), The Netherlands on December 9th 1994; it was co-signed by Jennifer Bryce, who was elected President in 1994.

Although the official name of the Tutors’ Association is the "European Bobath Tutors Association", the Articles of the Association (Definition in Article 2) refer to "qualified tutors to teach neurodevelopmental treatment (NDT)/ Bobath  concept". The term ‘NDT’ is based on Bobath teaching in the USA. In the 1980s and 1990s, European Bobath Tutors such as Mary Quinton and Dr Elspeth Koeng were spending much time teaching in the US, qualifying many tutors. Thus NDT was already in use and had become widespread; so for the sake of unity and to aid working together in the future, it was decided to refer to Bobath as NDT/Bobath.

The Core Curriculum for 240 hour Basic Courses as set down by Dr and Mrs Bobath was standardised over a number of years. Margaret Mayston (UK) together with Jos de Cat (Belgium) facilitated 6 Core Curriculum working group meetings: Lisbon 2001, London 2003, Berlin 2004, Netherlands 2005, Leuven 2006 and London 2007. These became core-curriculum workshops, with the participation of permanent members from Belgium, Germany,  Israel, The Netherlands and the UK. 2007 saw the completion of this work, with the addition of an updated Bibliography from Dr Mayston.


Aims of EBTA

The aims of the Association are:

  • to maintain the integrity of the NDT/Bobath concept and develop it in accordance with evolving scientific advances.
  • to promote the availability and accessibility of the NDT/Bobath concept to all countries.
  • to maintain and improve the standards of training of NDT/Bobath tutors.
  • to maintain and improve the standards of NDT/Bobath courses.
  • to organise regular meetings and educational programmes.
  • to facilitate the co-operation and the exchange of ideas between members and other appropriate national or international organisations.
  • to promote research into the theoretical basis and functional/clinical/outcome of the NDT/Bobath concept.