Welcome to the autumn Osteo Life magazine

I write this president’s message with slight brain fog from sleep deprivation as my partner and I welcomed our son Gus on 2 February this year. In that same week, our daughter Stevie started her first year of school. Needless to say, it’s been an action-packed start to 2023 juggling readers, sleep schedules, lunch boxes and feeding! A big thank you to our Vice President Matt Cooper who stepped in for me over the month of February.

In early March, we held our Board Strategy Meeting in Melbourne. This meeting is where we align our financial year projects with our strategic plan. It’s imperative that this meeting offers up clear actions for the Board and Osteopathy Australia to deliver to make progress in our strategic plan.

The Board spent its strategic energy working on projects to help support our early career osteopaths and our business owners to navigate some of the issues that we face in private practice. This session was facilitated based on feedback from focus groups that were held in early 2023 with both our Early Career Advisory Group and a range of osteopathic business owners who highlighted some of the challenges.

Osteopathy Australia

T (02) 9410 0099 E info@osteopathy.org.au

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OSTEO LIFE is the quarterly magazine for Osteopathy Australia members. For enquiries, feedback, or to contribute, contact Communications on 02 9410 0099 or comms@osteopathy.org.au. For advertising enquires, email info@osteopathy.org.au.

Editorial and Education Advisory Group

Toby Barker, Casey Beaumont, Amy Lawton, Melissa McDougall, Adam Nicholson, Jade Scott, Sally Tran, Heath Williams

Chief Executive Antony Nicholas

Editor Rebekka Thompson-Jones

Sub Editor Adam Scroggy Designer Stephanie Goh

Advertising info@osteopathy.org.au

Printed by Megacolour OSTEO

We are excited to deliver projects to help the profession, regardless of being a new or longer-term associate or a principle over the next financial year. Stay tuned to see some exciting advancements with buddy systems, group mentoring for early career osteopaths and a range of resources for associates and business owners to support them as they help transition early career osteopaths from university into private practice.

Osteopathy Australia has been engaged in a rebranding exercise that you may have read about over the past two years. This project is culminating in Osteopathic Awareness month in April where our members will have access to a marketing campaign that helps consumers understand what osteopathy is. This campaign’s goal is to reach those Australians with no knowledge of osteopathy to consider osteopathic treatment for their pain. We encourage you to look at this campaign through the lens of someone with zero experience or knowledge of osteopathy.

The Board is excited this year to deliver our first roadshows post-COVID. We encourage our members to come to these roadshows to discuss any issues that they want and to also talk about certain topics within our strategic plan. This is our first opportunity to see you in a face-toface environment since COVID, and we would love for you all to come along and support these events in each state.

Wishing you all a happy Osteopathic Awareness month in April. We are really looking forward to seeing the impact of our new marketing campaign not only during this month but the strategy to be rolled out over the next 12-months and onwards to make sure that osteopathy is at the forefront of Australians thoughts when it comes to musculoskeletal health.

Michelle Funder, President Osteopathy Australia mfunder.director@osteopathy.org.au

Osteopathy Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and Elders of Country throughout Australia, and their connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders, past, present and emerging.

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