The Croatian Association for People Who Stutter is a non-governmental organisation and now has about 60 members - parents of children who stutter, adults who stutter, speech-language pathologists, SLP students and other professionals interested in helping. Most of our members are people who stutter or parents of children who stutter and about one third of our members are professionals.

As a SLP and person who stutters, I'm the president of the Association and of the Board, which includes four more members: one SLP, one adult who stutters and two parents of children who stutter. According to our Statutes, we have to meet at least four times a year, and all the main decisions have to be made by the majority of our members - at the General Assembly meeting. This is just what we have done at our April meeting, when all members of our Association, presented at a regular Assembly meeting, had agreed that we apply for ELSA membership.

Our aim is to make our society understand stuttering and to provide better a quality of life and communication for people who stutter. These aims we will achieve by working on public awareness of the problems of people who stutter, by educating the public, but also specific groups like parents, SLPs, teachers, employers etc, by publishing informative leaflets and books, by gathering useful information for people who stutter and other interested parties, etc.

Three self-help groups have begun meeting every week. Our experience and feed-back is that group work has been very useful for all participants.

Since our official registration, and as we'd had planned, three self-help groups have begun meeting every week. These were groups for adults, for school-age children up to 10 years of age, and children from 10-14 years of age. Our fourth group, for preschool children and their parents, started some time later - in February this year, and is meeting every second week. In this group we work at the same time, but separately, with parents and with children. Our experience and feed-back is that group work has been very useful for all participants. Our attempt to gather SLPs who work with persons who stutter has'nt been that successful yet.
On the occasion of the International Stuttering Awareness Day last year and in connection with the action May-Better Speech and Hearing Month this year, we had numerous media appearances (national and regional TV and radio stations and newspapers) and held lectures for teachers and parents.

We have three leaflets about stuttering (for parents and teachers) and one about our Association. The co-operation with Croatian Telecom should very soon show results: they have prepared some publishing texts about stuttering that we'd given them (one about children stuttering and the other about using a telephone for persons who stutter). The brochures should soon be available for distribution at all Telecom sales locations and pediatric offices throughout Croatia, and we are about to sign a contract with them as our general sponsors!
One of our members, a person who stutters, but who has been successfully cured, has written a book, and with one of his books we have established our library - it was only a few weeks ago and our library still has only one book, but we believe in richer future!
This is the good news from the Croatian Association. The bad news is that we still mainly cover the Zagreb area, where our residence is, and unfortunately there is still not much interest in our efforts among SLPs, and also that adults who stutter themselves are not ready for self-help..., but considering that we're still very young association there is hope.
Finally, thank you for putting us on ELSA web site and on the list of the European National Stuttering Associations. We hope to become listed as a full member soon!

Added Remark: Since this article was written, things have developed: The brochure published by Croation telecom has been released, CAPS gave a presentation at the recent ELSA AGM and has been welcomed as a full member of ELSA and ISA. ELSA wishes Croatia every success. The Editor