Writing retreat at Engø Gård, Norway – March 2019

After a long, busy winter for the EST project with individual and skype meetings, we had finally managed to clear our calendars to join each other again for a writing retreat. 

We met the first week of March at Engø Gård, some of us for shorter, others for longer stays. Engå Gård promises you to “Find peace and tranquility” and so we did at this lovely historic hotel in the archipelago of Southern Norway. 

Despite spring time in the calendar, snow was in the air, covering the first flowering crocuses and snowdrops. Engø Gård can serve about 100 guests; however, we had the luxury to be the only guests at this time of the year. 

Even though being just a small group, the service was outstanding and the food delicious. Not to talk about the seemingly unlimited access to fruit and the perfect timed servings of homemade sweets in the meeting rooms during our long working days. 

For some of us, the mornings started at the gorgeous English conservatory style bath house, while others concluded the day’s work in the clear blue water of the swimming pool. A swim in the ocean on the other hand, we decided to save for a later stay. 

Linn, Åse and Kari-Anne pre-started the week by working all Sunday in Tønsberg, which resulted in some remarkable ideas and suggestions for the RCT. Monday morning, Melanie picked them up for the final drive to Engå Gård, where also Elisabeth and Hilde joined after driving form quite different parts of Norway. During this writing stay, the majority of us had the chance to meet Elisabeth in person for the first time and not just online, which was of great pleasure for all of us.

Hanne Næss Hjetland

Since we are working on several systematic reviews were we use the DistillerSR software, we also had invited Hanne Næss Hjetland (currently working at the Norwegian Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU)) to share her expertise and experience with DistillerSR in an evening session. For this session, we also had an additional visitor, Karine Bakken, Kari-Anne`s PhDs-student at the University of South-Eastern Norway.  It is so great to have good colleagues as Hanne, to spend their time and knowledge across projects. As so often, we concluded that we should have thought about that even earlier in the review process, but it was definitely not too late. Thanks to Hanne and Karine for their contributions and company.

Elaina joined in from Australia via skype for two long meetings on Tuesday and Thursday, unfortunately only participating in the work and discussions without the benefits of the social part. However, thanks to modern technology, she could save the time to travel that far, even though we missed her lively presence. On the other hand, Karoline and Ane from Statped were able to spend some days with us at Engø as well, completing the main project group with their practical–clinical insight and feedback.

From left going with the clock:
Karoline, Hilde, Åse, Linn, Elaina (skype), Elisabeth, Kari-Anne, Melanie and Ane

The time schedule at Engø covered both whole group meetings, sub-group working sessions and individual writing time. The EST project has many parallel ongoing activities, where the upcoming RCT was of course the main focus. Planning such a large clinical trial includes everything from preparing the protocol itself, discussing inclusion criteria, sketching screening interview questions, completing the ethics applications, designing information material and so on. Another working package of the project concerns future guidelines for health care professionals working with preschool children that stutter. Therefore, some of us are currently developing a survey for health care nurses, kindergarten teachers and speech-language pathologist to capture the state of art in Norway.  In addition, we had just received a detailed review of our Cochrane protocol that needed to be addressed. In other words: a very busy week with good progress for the EST project on several levels.  

PS: The next writing retreat is planned for the autumn semester, and Engø Gård is a strong candidate for a place to come back to.