6:30-8:30
St. Luke's
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MissionGiveBack, Inc. is a self-help community dedicated to educating, encouraging and inspiring survivors of head injuries to commit to using compensation strategies so that they can regain control of their lives and build new futures. Those who succeed are asked to give back by reaching out to survivors still finding their way.GiveBack was created to fill a gap left when the healthcare system abandoned responsibility for the long-term needs of TBI patients and their families. It brings to those who have never received them the recovery strategies needed to reduce disability, in the form of self-help techniques. We remind one another that the recovery is each person's own responsibility; it is the job of the survivor because no one else can or will do it. VisionGiveBack has created a community where survivors and their families can meet others who are dedicated to improving recovery, learn from those who have gone farther down the road, and help those who are starting their own journey. For this purpose we offer understanding, partnership, education, encouragement, and the recognition of recovery accomplishments.We will work toward the recovery not only of adults, but of children and adolescents whose education has been disabled. We are committed to building and strengthening the community of TBI not only in Central Flordia, but in the whole country, by sharing our stories and research to increase awareness of head injury issues and answers, and by helping other regions to start chapters of their own. HistoryIn the 1940s, medical science learned to keep people with severe head injuries alive. It had no idea how much they might recover, nor any ways to help them recover.In the 1960s, ordinary (non-specialized) medical, mental health, educational and rehabilitation services were used to help people with head injuries to recover. They didn't work. In the 1970s, the first long-term research appeared, indicating that very few survivors achieved full recoveries on their own. In 1974, the National Head Injury Program of Israel invented a unique, high-intensity treatment procedure called cognitive rehabilitation, specifically designed for head injury recovery. Its methods are still considered to be the state of the art. Beginning in 1978, the faculty of the Israeli program began to transplant their program to American hospitals. In 1980, Dr. Yigal Gross brought the program to Robert Wood Johnson Rehabilitation Center in New Jersey. In 1982, GiveBack's Dr. Larry Schutz was hired to lead one of their treatment teams. In 1991, Dr. Schutz came to Orlando's Brain Injury Rehabilitation Center at Sand Lake Hospital to supervise the outpatient cognitive rehabilitation program. In the 2000s, managed care has closed most of the head injury programs in this country. In 2004, Dr. Schutz proposed to his outpatient head injury group (including Becky Dedo, Tim and Tammy Cramer, and Myles Higby) that they create a new kind of self-help program for people who never received cognitive rehabilitation. In 2004, Becky agreed to assume the role of program coordinator. The graduates of the outpatient program who had achieved the best recoveries were invited to contribute to the program. In 2005, psychology students from the University of Central Florida volunteered to join the organization, and GiveBack, Inc. was born.
GiveBack, Inc.
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