Houston Aphasa Recovery Center
Houston, TX
On June 27th, 2011, the Houston Aphasia Recovery Center (HARC) went to City Hall in Houston to acccept their Proclamation claiming June as National Aphasia Awareness Month in Houston. Their Aphasia Community Taskforce group also presented their first HARC Hero Award to Scot Ison of Axis Property for his aphasia-friendly business!
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Carondelet Aphasia Program
Tucson, AZ
Our National Aphasia Awareness Month activities this year focused primarily on educating our colleagues in the hospital about aphasia. In keeping with the theme of Aphasia Friendly Businesses, it seemed that a good place for us to start was the business that supports us, namely, St. Joseph’s Hospital. It gave us an opportunity not only to provide education to individuals in our daily group environment but also to honor hospital staff members for their support of our aphasia program.
To start us off, we posted our NAA Aphasia Friendly Businesses poster in the reception area of the Department of Outpatient Rehabilitation. (Thank you to SCALE for a fabulous poster.) We then developed an Aphasia Word Scramble (with definitions) and placed it in the breakroom. It was a hit! We followed that with a bowl of salt water taffy and a thank you note to the staff members for the kindness and support they provide for individuals living with aphasia. In addition, we posted the following brief article about aphasia both in the breakroom and on the online newsletter for our hospital network. Please click here to view the text of the article.
Finally, we did something new this year that turned into one of the most meaningful and memorable events for our program - we awarded our first ever Aphasia Advocate Awards. Our award recipients were three staff members who are instrumental in the day-to-day maintenance of our program, but who typically receive little acknowledgement because they work behind the scenes (helping to book rooms, order supplies, collect fees, navigate hospital policies, etc.). At the award ceremony, one of our advocacy group members thanked each awardee personally, and they each received a certificate and a beautiful bracelet from Something Special, the gift shop at the Adler Aphasia Center. We owe a big thank you to Chrysa Golashesky at the Adler Aphasia Center for helping us coordinate the purchase of the bracelets. As a follow-up, we posted a photo of the awardees and an article about the award on the hospital website. Each awardee seemed deeply moved by the honor. I strongly encourage others to take the time to honor their own Aphasia Advocates. It was an incredibly positive experience for the honorees and the aphasia group members; we are already making our list for next year.
-Fabiane Hirsch, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Program Lead
fhirsch@carondelet.org
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