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It was the experience -
the anticipation of the unknown, the travel to and from, the camp, the activities, the program and people - the processing of new learning and availability of watching others . . . The dynamics of other families and support networks . . . The dynamics of being together and realizing where each FASD EXPERT fit into the spectrum with a visualization of a new understanding of FASDs . . . The realization that you are not alone and the traveling home opening new dialogue that may have never been allowed or spoken before. Barriers were broken, trust was built and a new generation of young adults with FASDs appears to be emerging . . . Our mutiny created new ways of collaborative problem solving modeled by skilled parents, support individuals and staff while being embraced by young adults - They gained THEIR VOICES. Voices that need to ring clear across our land. What we learned through this camp and previous camps is that when everyone in the community understood the brain injury and language of the culture of fetal alcohol situations were handled safely and appropriately in subtle ways. There was a natural order of support that emerged - young people reached to prompt or redirect other young people, support people taught other support people and everyone encouraged each other. A compassionate comradariie of respect with responsibiity was the reality. We discovered the exact opposite of the warnings of the dramatic, violent and dangerous behaviors of persons with FASDs. The offsite quiet room we had available was never needed. The on-site neutral support person remained available and alert ready to work triage if the opportunity arose. Though young people made random visits to pet the service dogs and chat no more direction than that to regain composure and return to activities was needed. For years, to keep our children safe from their FASDs, parents were forced to harbor their chldren to keep them from being another statistic or watched them fail. Because of all the work and advocacy of these parents that went before us and the public awareness that is emerging we hope the new generation of young people will be allowed to have more freedom to gain the interdependence they need to live full and meaningful lives. We are beginning to see effective and healthy supports beyond families to encourage safer young adult living. We are in the infancy of merging best practices from across the globe and developing multi- faceted intracollaboratives of life models that support our young people in an interdependent respectful way. Person centered planning that understands the responsibility of adulthood comes in smaller steps than the larger population. Society needs to respect that these young people have strengths, wisdom and value. They may not portray the common accepted verbal, visual, auditory and kinestec language of their culture - but the beauty of what they say, who they are and how they understand is a gift we can no longer waste. We must to honor our young adults as people first while being aware of FASDs. They are not FASDs they are valuable human beings. We cannot continue to throw FASD in their face. Instead of saying "Ah you just had another FASD moment" we need to model and show them in clear steps how to manage stage one behavior and become aware of it so they do not reach meltdown or put themselves in harms way. It is what all successful people do. Our young adults can be successful. A major issue in fetal alcohol is that most research and programming is geared for prevention, clinical practice, and programming intervention at younger ages. The time of youth is short and the damage done by alcohol to these young people is life long. We need funding and realistic research to develop best practices for development of community embraced interdependence of our young people. We need funding to establish community based test pilots with multi-layered transitional opportunities within healthy educated communities. If research today truly believes it takes 10 individuals to support one adult with FASDs then the logical next step would be to develop communities where some of the best 10 individuals are and develop a model that can be duplicated by eventually dispersing the original 10 professional to build new teams. This opportunity must be a collaborative effort between private industry, public funding and families. We need to bring expertise together, there is much work to be done. We are already wasting too much time and money - in our jails, in our hospitals, in our schools, and in the heartache of the families and young people they affect. We can no longer transition our young people whose loved ones have brought them so far into the statistics of FASDs. |
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Evaluation of everyone's camp experiences - pulling
together the report - and thanking everyone who
participated
A BIG HEARTFELT THANK YOU! Our Young People are Stepping Out Camp T-Shirts are available for$10.00 each (uncolored) plus $2.90 shipping. All funds will go to future camps. XL and 2X only left! -- They make GREAT PJs |
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Tiny Titan Turns 18
Becca spent her first weekend of being 18 as a PCA for her younger sister at our Life in the FASlane Camp. The child who medical professional said would not survive her first year is beginning to take charge of her emerging adulthood. Congratulations from Better Endings New Beginnings Mom's Choice Award - TINY TITAN IS A FINALIST Ann and Jodee will be traveling as 'just' two mom's in author and publisher costumes to New York City in October for the Mom's Choice Award's Black Tie Gala Event at Marriott Marquis, Tiny Titan a Journey of Hope has been nominated as finalist in two categories - Adult Non-Fiction and a special category - Your Heart Our Hands. We hope to meet the New York City caregivers and since we don't have New York style clothes - we plan to pick up new outfits and take in a Broadway Play. We were also given Honorable Mention in the Hollywood Book and Film Awards for biographies and memoires. The Best I Can Be - Living with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is going into it's 7th printing-2nd Edition, adding eight pages of appendix and will be perfect bound so bookstore will be able to carry it on their shelves. Whitest Wall, the first of the Bootleg Brothers Trilogy is in final edits, and preorders will be available in November. Publishing date is scheduled for January 2008. If anyone is interested in a pre-read for writing reviews - we would appreciate it. Future plans include Ann Yurcek and family, Jodee Kulp and family and Deb Evensen collaborating on future publications. |
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Wishing you Survival
through Summer Holidays.
HAPPY SUMMER - Stay Cool!
Jodee Kulp
Better Endings New Beginnings
email:
jodee@connetworks.com
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