Hi, all,

I hope your recent holiday held some special people and memories.

November’s end always brings me to wrapping up the year’s work and starting my wish list for the months to come. This year was busy and productive for me on the brain trauma advocacy front. I visited several states in June on a swing through New England. And in September, at the National Association of State Head  Injury Administrators (NASHIA) State of the State Convention, I presented a session on HB 1338 to interested people from Alaska to Florida. It was the first time I presented our Outreach Map, which keeps track of the status of our work in each of the 50 states regarding this bill.

That conference was summed up in an email from Kelly Ramsey, Executive Director of the Brain Injury Alliance of America’s Texas Division, which said NASHIA attendees were telling her how informative my session was.

I’ve updated the Outreach map to show those states I had followup conversations with. Our goal is for this law, offering training on brain trauma recognition and constructive response to peace officers and first responders, to be broached in every state.

On December 9, I will present a poster at the Brain Injury Alliance, Texas Division’s annual Symposium, on 2016’s outreach, in conjunction with the Office of Acquired Brain Injury as they discuss their work in providing this training to date. As of August, they had a rough count of 550 recipients this year; many were requested trainings.

The results are good for both my speaking on this topic and for the training that supports this work. Please contact me if you have questions or comments. And thank you for reading!