PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT THE NEW VISION
SUSANNA MENDICINO Vice President in charge of Professional Development
This year marked an important turning point for one of the key areas of ELSA, with the rebranding of the traineeships programme from STEP to ELSA Traineeships, additionally, the name of this key area was changed to Professional Development. What really deserves to be highlighted in this regard, is that it was not only a formal change of a “label” but something far more important. The Professional Development area is now not only in charge of the longest-running ELSA Flagship Project, but it is also fully dedicated to the overall process of making our members more aware of the professional background they need to cultivate in order to gain significant access the legal market and develop their careers. The response of the Network exceeded the expectations that we set at the beginning of the term, more than half of the National Groups started their transition from STEP to Professional Development, both on the national level and on the local level, organising engaging new projects and activities. In all the International Internal Meetings and during the Open Calls that were organised during the term, the International Board gave several training sessions and discussions in order to give all the Officers the tools and the information they needed to embrace this important change.
ANNUAL REPORT
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