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FacingDisability in the Spotlight

June 18, 2012

Ever since the “Chicago Tribune” featured a story on our ground-breaking website, our inboxes have been flooded with congratulatory emails and thanks for our work.

The “Tribune” article “Website Gives Disabled People Info,” is about our founders’ desire to connect families dealing with SCI with the life-experience of many other people using the internet. The story led to a follow-up in “Trib Nation,” the newspaper’s blog, on how our multi-media-rich website may serve as a future social-support model for any type of injury or illness—physical or mental. (Also be sure to check out the video, below, and story on founder Thea Flaum’s previous career as the producer of the Ebert-Siskel Movie-Review series.)

ABC 7 News Chicago is putting FacingDisability.com on the air as well. Reporter Karen Meyer interviewed Flaum and Dr. Elliot Roth, Director of the Brain Injury Program at the Rehabilitation Institution of Chicago, on their plans to create a traumatic brain injury website modeled on FacingDisability.com. The story will be broadcast in a special segment celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disability Act on July 26th.

In medical news, FacingDisability.com is helping a team of researchers at the University of Virginia develop an Internet intervention for people with SCI to prevent pressure ulcers and promote healthy skin behaviors. They will be using expert videos from Mary Ziegler’s FacingDisability pressure sore interview for a pilot program that will be tested in a randomized controlled trial later this year.

Flaum has also received another honor lately: She’s been asked to sit on the board of the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center (MSKTC). She will use her experience with SCI to help advance spinal cord injury, brain injury and burn treatment and research.

And finally, on a lighter note, who would have thought a single Tweet and Facebook mention by an old friend could 600 FacingDisability hits in one day?! Well, if it’s Roger Ebert, it’s possible. See what Ebert had to say by “Liking” FacingDisability on Facebook.

It is an exciting time for FacingDisability and we’d like to know what other articles you’d like to see. Please share your ideas below.

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2 responses to “FacingDisability in the Spotlight”

  1. Anna says:

    I go to this place in San Antonio, TX for exercise after spinal injury. It helps, and you can use the gym for free if you have injuries. Its non-profit. This is the link. http://www.pressingontx.org/ They are doing a 5k in November I think. come join.

  2. Amanda says:

    I just watched the news segment on ABC 7 news with Karen Meyer that featured the facingdisbility.com website and am thrilled to hear this is available. I am very interested and eager to hear more details regarding the possibillity of a TBI resource to utilize as my life changed after being involved in an auto accident in 2006 that resulted in a Traumatic Brain Injury. I am very thankful for the help and recovery I experienced through the Rehabiliation Institute of Chicago. Each day is a new day and brings new challenges as I I continue to learn about who I am now. It truly would be helpful to have resources to turn to for myself and my husband, family, friends,etc. I feel so alone sometimes and often don’t even know how to begin to explain TBIs to others. It’s like being invisibly wounded.

    If there is anything I can do to help in the creation of a TBI resource, please let me know!

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