Support Groups

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Comment by Rudy Cook on November 4, 2009 at 4:13am

I thought you might be interested in a clinical research study now enrolling people with a past head injury who feel sleepy during the day. This study is going on at various study centers around the US. Go to this website for more information: www.HeadSleepStudy.com.

Lisa

Comment by Craig J. Phillips MRC, BA on September 4, 2009 at 11:44am

Dear Friend,
I would like to be of service to both you and to the individuals that you serve. Please let me introduce myself. My name is Craig J. Phillips. I am a traumatic brain injury survivor, a masters level rehabilitation counselor, an internationally published author and a motivational speaker with a message of encouragement, motivation, empowerment and hope for anyone touched by abuse, trauma or adversity.

In August of 1967, at the age of 10, I sustained an open skull fracture with right frontal lobe damage and a severe brain contusion, brain stem involvement and a fractured left femur. I remained in a coma for 3 weeks. Although I was not expected to live the night of the car accident in 1967, or succeed beyond high school academically I went onto obtain both my undergraduate and graduate degrees. *About Page* http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com/about-second-chance-to-live/.

In August 1967 neurological rehabilitation was not available. Consequently, I was on my own. With the encouragement of family and hard work I taught myself again to walk, talk, read, write and speak in complete sentences.

On February 6, 2007 I created *Second Chance to Live *http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com/ to share the principles and strategies that have encouraged, motivated, empowered and given me hope to succeed beyond all reasonable expectations. You may read what several individuals have said about the influence that Second Chance to Live has had upon their lives on my *Testimonial / Endorsement Page* http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com/testimonialsendorsements/.

Second Chance to Live has been published through out the United States, in Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. My *Publications Page* http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com/pub/. Most recently the *Brain Injury Association of Canada* featured Second Chance to Live on their web site http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/second-chance-to-live-and-the-brain-injury-association-of-canada/.

I have been interviewed by several individuals as well as by *ABC Radio KGO AM 810*: my *Interview Page* http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com/interview/. I am available to be of service to you, your mission and vision. Please see my *Speaker Page* http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com/public-speaking/ and my* Media Page* http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com/press/.

To date I have written 476 articles which are located in *Site Map* http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com/site-map/.

I look forward to being of service to you, your organization and the individuals that you serve.

Craig J. Phillips MRC, BA
Second Chance to Live

*Our circumstances are not meant to keep us down, but they are meant to build us up! *

Comment by van den Bosch on December 13, 2008 at 11:11pm

Great news Craig. Thanks for sharing it.

Comment by Craig Sicilia on December 12, 2008 at 6:18pm

I will share with you kind of whats going on here, currently we are working on several different groups, we are trying to network where ever we can, each group has its own board, 6 officers all who are tbi survivors, only survivors can be officers. There are several other board members with out tbi as well. each area has a region rep and we are trying to meet every other month to brain storm. We are very involved in our communities doing projects such as projectfeedspokane, veterns games, working with local health departments and the CDC. It has grown so fast but this does not go with out its challenges, there has to be a standard set, and a very high one. I believe that all survivors need to be networked and that has been my goal. They need to set the standard of services they are going to receive. Any way I am just starting this path and I know for it to work everyone has to work together.

Comment by Craig Sicilia on December 12, 2008 at 6:07pm

(TBI) Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor Network "UPDATE"



Launching of the North Idaho Brain Injury Support Group

Saturday January 17th 1:pm TO 3:pm

Meetings will be the 3rd Saturday of each month

North enterence room kmc3

Kootenai Medical Center
2003 Lincoln Way
Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814

Comment by van den Bosch on November 21, 2008 at 9:23pm

Craig - let's talk about this. The Brain Injury Alliance will be inviting members, premium members, etc. in just a few days. I will let you know more in a few days. We should talk about this when I am in Spokane soon, Could we meet for a bit later in December sometime?

Comment by Craig Sicilia on November 20, 2008 at 7:03am

I am working to start a support group i colville, years ago they had one and a young man named todd is is invovled with some othert things really misses the group, so i found a location at the stevens county dshs offices which is perfect and some support from the county coordinator, One of the survivors families to facilitate the group i would help them at first but a true support group can be support by its memebers with a little guidence, any thoughts on this, and how do the become invovled with the bia

Comment by van den Bosch on November 19, 2008 at 8:26pm

Craig - let's look around and discuss this for a bit and see what can come up with, OK? Let's keep up this discussion about how we can improve support groups - and start new ones. It's important. I am going to look around and see what kind of funding is out there - or coming up - for support group improvements such as you describe.

Comment by van den Bosch on November 19, 2008 at 8:20pm

Becky - to receive information and referrals as you describe, call the TBI Helpline (offered by the BIAWA) toll-free at 1-877-824-1766. One of the counselors thre can giv you the information you need.

Comment by Craig Sicilia on November 19, 2008 at 11:15am

Hi Gene

I had to put some thought into your question, I am coming from a area where the group seems to have lots of past problems, and its structure is interesting but after my injury it was all there was and maybe part of my destiny was to help it rise from the ashes, but its very un-motivating trying to build a solid foundation under a shaky building

With all that said and my observations over the last year. Here is what I think needs to happen

1. A guide of techniques and various methods used to facilitate support groups. A true support group can grow and be very valuable; I believe its members the survivors should control the group. They should even go as far as to have officers like a president, vice, secretary, treasure and sergeant of arms something like that. They should decide as a group where their group is going and what types of things they want to learn, share and communicate about. Every group will be very different depending on the characteristics and members.

2. I think each group should have advisors not leaders to help the survivors in their journey. I realize that family and caregivers need support too,, but it should always be survivor based.
3. Facilitators should have a code of conduct and accountability and if for some reason that cannot be maintained someone else should take the lead, again the survivors would decide this. I think if a facilitator has more problems than the group that becomes un-healthy. As many problems as we survivors go through if you are in a leadership role that should not be apparent.
4. Some how there needs to be over site to keep groups healthy and active. Positive feedback to the survivors so they can make positive choices about their group. The best way would be to have surprise visits to the group to just kind of observe. Get feed back from the survivors and share this information with all the other groups.
5. A connection between the groups, the advisors should do phone conferences monthly for an hours, set up advocacy and involve the survivors, get them to Olympia during advocacy let out senators and representative hear from who needs the services and support. I am planning on 15 of us survivors going to advocacy day and am working on setting up meetings with several of our representatives. But it needs to happen globally there is more power with 100’s of survivors going than just a few.

These are a few ideas I am putting much thought in the subject and will update you on my thoughts let me know if I am off track or what.

Thanks Gene I think this alliance has great potential in sharing information and resources

Craig

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