November 2002

The Brain Injury Association of Arkansas’

The Annual General Membership meeting of the Brain Injury Association of Arkansas will be held on Saturday, December 7, 2002, at 1:00 p.m. in the Sheffield Room on the first floor at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock.

The officers of the Association will report on the progress made in the past year and plans for the coming year.

Returning and/or new Board members will be voted on by the membership.

A detailed agenda will be distributed at the meeting.

Your presence is requested. Come and help the Association grow.

The Traumatic Brain Injury Act (P.L.104-166) is a Federal law that specifically addresses the issues faced by people with TBI. This law represents a foundation for coordinated and balanced public policy in prevention, education, research and community-living for people living with a TBI and their families. It was re-authorized last year as a part of the Children’s Health Act of 2000 (P.L.106-310).

The TBI Act authorizes Federal funding of several programs:

• The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) state grant program for the purpose of carrying out projects to improve health and community-based services for individuals with TBI and their families. The program includes planning and implementation grants and the newly authorized system capacity building grants.
• Centers for Disease Control (CDC) research activities to conduct state surveillance studies, report TBI incidence data and other prevention-related projects, including education/awareness campaigns.
• A Protection and Advocacy (P&A) Services for Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury program in HRSA will expand the Federal P&A system by protecting the rights of persons with TBI. Authorized 2000, the program is intended to provide for information and referrals, individual and family advocacy, legal representation and assistance in self-advocacy.
• National Institutes of Health (NIH) research, including a 1998 Consensus Conference on the "Rehabilitation of Persons with Traumatic Brain Injury."

In the spring of 2001, the Arkansas University Center on Disabilities (Partners for Inclusive Communities) was awarded one of the HRSA Traumatic Brain Injury Planning Grants. The TBI Planning Grant is a 2 year grant focusing on 4 benchmark activities: identifying a lead agency (the agency that coordinated TBI services), forming a state-wide Traumatic Brain Injury Advisory Board, conducting a state-wide needs and resources assessment, and forming a state plan for addressing the needs of people with TBI and their families.

Working toward these goals, we’ve collaborated with a number of organizations and agencies: The Brain Injury Association of Arkansas, Baptist Health Rehabilitation Institute, Timber Ridge Group, Inc., Department of Health, Arkansas Rehabilitation Services, Department of Human Services and the Department of Education. We spent most of last year completing the state-wide needs and resources assessment. We collected information about the needs of survivors and their families through mail-out surveys, focus groups (Little Rock, Jonesboro, Springdale, and Camden), and our TBI Advisory Board (comprised of at least 50% survivors/family members). After evaluating that information, we developed a state plan for Arkansas that is a comprehensive, holistic plan to address the needs identified by Traumatic Brain Injury survivors and their families. The identified needs to be addressed in the plan are:

We plan to apply for the TBI Implementation Grant, which is the next phase of the HRSA grants. If awarded this grant, we will be able to address one or two of the identified needs from the state plan. Capacity building in Arkansas is the goal of all of these activities. It’s a very exciting time in our state. We thank all whom have participated in the process as we move toward a more comprehensive, coordinated, and consumer directed community based service delivery system.

If you would like a more complete report of the needs and resources assessment or would like to comment on anything in this article, please contact Anna Vollers, TBI Planning Grant, Project Coordinator, at 501-831-4827 or 501-682-9915.

Our 14^th annual symposium was attended by approximately 100 individuals, including a wide range of professionals and several survivors and family members/caregivers. We had several exhibitors, all with excellent booths. While the final numbers are not in, we expect about $11,000 in revenue from the symposium. It's almost time to start planning for next year.

One idea that we have discussed off and on the past couple of years is a one-day conference specifically for survivors, family members and caregivers. If we decide to hold a conference, it would probably held in the spring. While we think there would be interest is such a conference, we are not sure what topics would appeal to the most people. If you have thoughts on topics you would like to see covered, please send the topics to Gary Low at our mail box at the bottom of this page or by e-mail to gary@glowar.com.

Mary Anne Sullivan – President – SullivanMaryAnne@uams.edu
Rene Boucher– Vice President – rehabrene@hotmail.com
Diane Gottsponer – Secretary – tdgottsp@baptist-health.org
Gary Low – Treasurer – gary@glowar.com

Little Rock, 2^nd Tuesday – Diane Gottsponer, 501-202-7047
Fayetteville, 2^nd Tuesday – Sherry Priestaf, 479-442-5600
Russellville/Clarksville – Jim Spragins, 479-890-5751
Conway, 2^nd Monday – Lorri Buddenberg, 501-450-3192
Mountain Home, 1^st Saturday – Dr Vann Smith, 870-445-4941
Jonesboro – Angie Schmidt, 870-932-0440
Hot Springs – Bill Hartley, 501-525-8463

Stroke Support Group
Little Rock, 1^st Wednesday – Michael Inman, PhD, 501-202-7617

Brain Injury Association of Arkansas
PO Box 26236
Little Rock AR 72221-6236