Brain Injury Network

      Thanks for all of the information about your new group. Are you a nurse or counselor, or are you a survivor of head trauma, or maybe both?

       I had my brain trauma 21 years ago, so I am way down the road of "recovery" and plus I lucked out and did not have one that totally destroyed my brain. The thing about the "Cautionary Tale and A Call for National Standards", it is a very long, complicated, in some ways technical document that probably would not be suitable for people with recent tbi's as a study piece. I am hoping that people who are quite recovered, but advocates, and also people in the field of rehab, like rehab counselors, psychologists, special ed. teachers, and then political people and public policy institutions like the state BIA's, will pick up the ideas and run with them. I know some survivors are going to try to tackle the document, so I am mentioning them at the beginning of it. But I think it will be tough reading for even people without tbi's. So, I am sending it to you for you to study, and then there might be topics there to discuss with your group, the topics that will not upset or aggravate them! However, there are some unsettling issues in the document, so you might want to keep that in mind when it comes to discussion topics with your group.

        Well, about websites that are useful, well, I'd just start researching the Internet. The biausa.org has a good bit of data on it, although right now their section on sources is being rewritten. I think I would start there, to see what is around your state or beyond. I have never put together that kind of list, because in California we have two agencies that already do that. If you look at the website of the TBI Model Project (Hospital) in your region, perhaps they maintain a good list. The one in California has a good list, but it is mostly relative to California.