Casebook of Exemplary Evidence-Informed Programs That Foster Community Participation After Acquired Brain Injury

Acquired brain injury (ABI) describes damage to the brain that occurs after birth caused by traumatic injurysuch as an accident or fall or by non-traumatic cause such as substance abuse stroke or disease. Today'smedical techniques are improving the survival rate for people of all ages diagnosed with ABI and currenttrends in rehabilitation are supporting these individuals returning to live attend school and work in theircommunities. Yet strategies on the best way of providing community participation vary among rehabilitationexperts. Because many of survivors of ABI do not and will not return to the status quo of their former lives itis important to examine what constitutes best and promisingpractices in this area.This casebook is the world's first compilation of evidence-informed programs that foster communityparticipation for people of all ages with brain injury. With thisreview we elicited and carefully examined existing programmatic efforts that combineemphasis on the individual the social and the service systems in a way that captures community participation as a complex process of interactivechange in the person-environment relationship - programs that do not divorce ABI survivors from their contexts and where participation effortsfacilitate positive change in the social and political context. We considered community-based programs to be programs where individuals and familiesactively participate in their own therapy (rehabilitation) and take responsibility for their own health or that of a family/community member.Each case study chapter depicts a program chosen on its extraordinary merits to provide community participation to its clients. The chapters are cowrittenby the stakeholder and a researcher giving a complete perspective of how the program was established and continues to operate and providesevidence of excellence.