CONFERENCE FORUMS THAT RELY ON "YOUR PARTICIPATION"
Two special conference forums rely on YOU, and your direct and active participation. In both, we not only need you there, we need your input about the issues, concerns, or solutions that matter to YOU in daily life now. We would like to highlight what you've dealt with, learned, and brought to key daily operations. We invite you to share this knowledge with others at the conference!
Electing "to present" in these forums is, of course, voluntary, but we welcome any and all thoughts and contributions...BOTH FROM INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS. These presentations are VERY INFORMAL and should require little preparatory time.
The basic form and nature of these contributions is described below. Please look through this information and complete the PARTICIPANT FORM. We'd appreciate receiving a completed form for each person attending. Return your completed forms when you send in your registration materials.
All information you submit is confidential and solely for our use in facilitating group discussions in these participation forums.
PARTICIPANT FORUM #1
SATURDAY EVENING'S ICE CREAM SOCIAL:
SHARING CURRENT LIFE INTERESTS AND HOBBIES
We know that a key ingredient to making daily life WORK and feel comfortable…is to search out and establish PURSUITS and ACTIVITIES that add purpose, meaning and direction to daily life. These essential additions to daily life do not happen automatically. Instead, they usually evolve only after time and effort…not just on the part of the person with aphasia but loved ones as well. We invite YOU (persons with aphasia, prime caregivers, support groups) to share your life stories and journeys...or to BRING EXAMPLES of your current interests and hobbies.
Think about your journey since injury and how you might highlight KEY PARTS that may help others with their journey now and in the years ahead. For example, how have you re-engaged meaningfully in daily life? Doing what? Why these activities instead of something else? What about these processes brings you special reward or pleasure? Why these? What did you need to reorder or restructure in life for these processes to work?
We're looking for ways for YOU to share this type of information. So, bring your photo album, your own photography or drawings, your cactus garden, your collection of elephant figurines, or the items you made in last year's craft clinic. Whatever form of sharing you've chosen, we'd like to see! On Saturday evening, over some Wisconsin ice cream [this is THE dairy state], we will have a spacious room available with tables where you may DISPLAY your hobbies, crafts, stories and personal journeys.
PARTICIPANT FORUM #2: SUNDAY MORNING
SESSION 1: LIFE DILEMMAS AND SOLUTIONS
SESSION 2: INNOVATIVE PURSUITS, PROJECTS AND PROCESSES
Continuing with the theme of YOUR participation and HELPING each other through our collective knowledge and experiences, there will be a two-part forum on Sunday. In Session 1, we'll host a group discussion about life dilemmas that have proven problematic (whether or not they have been resolved), and, in Session 2, we highlight innovative pursuits, projects and processes that individuals or groups have found important and valuable. Again, we need your participation for these forums to work! We invite you or your group to PRESENT a brief scenario on such topics.
SESSION 1: LIFE DILEMMAS THAT HAVE PROVEN PROBLEMATIC OVER TIME
We invite an individual or a spokesperson from a support group to volunteer to present a brief description of (a) a specific life dilemma that currently exists, and for which you have no solution and would like audience or panel input, or (b) a life dilemma that was formerly problematic, and its resolution.
SESSION 2: INNOVATIVE PURSUITS, PROJECTS, AND PROCESSES
Again, we invite individuals or spokespersons from groups to present their endeavors. Please consider describing an ongoing or completed project or process you discovered that has substantially added to the quality of daily life.
Please complete the PARTICIPANT FORM and return it with your registration materials BEFORE SEPTEMBER 1st. We'll review submissions and select three to five topics for presentation on Sunday. Should your submission be selected, we'll contact you by phone by September 15, 2004.
We are interested in having equal representation in these forums from individuals who talk with ease or who do not (due to their aphasia). If severe expressive difficulties prohibit a desired presenter from volunteering, we'll work with that person/presenter to find a way to share his/her topic. The final conference program will reflect the names of invited contributors to these sessions.
In addition to audience participation, we have invited a panel of local aphasia experts to be in the audience, and to offer their reactions as well. We hope that that panel will include a person with aphasia, a caregiver, a physician, a nurse, a physical therapist, a speech-language pathologist and a social worker. The panel should add an interesting and dynamic dialogue.
Fill out your participation forms and come show and interact with us in these special forums about YOU.
PARTICIPANT FORM
(Please fill out as much of this form as you are comfortable with;
we'd appreciate receiving a SEPARATE FORM from each person attending)
ALL INFO IS CONFIDENTIAL…
Data will be reported only in terms of group trends...not individually...
and used solely for possible discussion in Sunday's Participation Forums
NAME ______________________________________________________________________________
Age (OPTIONAL) _______________
Mailing Address ____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Phone Number ________________________________
E-Mail Address ________________________________
Occupation Now______________________________________________________________________
Prior To Injury ________________________________________________________________________
Prime Life Themes and Interests before Injury ____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Now ________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Your ties to aphasia ____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Number of years you've known person with aphasia __________
Number of years post-onset ___________
HARDEST PART of daily life now
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
EASIEST PART of daily life now ____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
BEST PART of daily life now
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
MOST CHALLENGING PART of daily life now
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
IF INTERESTED, AND WILLING, TO PRESENT AT ONE OF THE FORUMS, PLEASE COMPLETE THE REST OF THIS FORM
EITHER individually or as part of a support group, briefly describe the following:
A LIFE DILEMMA or BARRIER (tied to aphasia) that:
1) has been PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT TO RESOLVE
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
2) if successfully resolved…HOW DID THIS COME TO BE/OCCUR?
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
This dilemma is mine alone _________
This dilemma involves a support group _________
Recent LIFE PROJECT, PURSUIT OR OUTCOME that has SIGNIFICANTLY ENHANCED DAILY LIFE
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
This project, pursuit or outcome is mine alone _________
This project, pursuit or outcome involves a support group _________
Would you be interested, and willing, to share the above content with others in Sunday morning's sessions? ___________
If so, would you like or need assistance with that presentation? ________
If so, in what way(s)?
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
THANKS...
please enclose PARTICIPATION FORMS
when you mail in your REGISTRATION MATERIALS!