8th National Brain Injury Conference, Sydney

The National Assistance Card was very well received at a stand staffed by BIAT project managers Rosie Mooney, Marie-Clare Couper, and Sienna Tilley and Executive Officer Deborah Byrne.

Conference attendees – people with lived experience and their carers, organisations and service providers – had the opportunity to find out more about the National Assistance Card and register their interest in online information sessions BIAT have planned for the coming months. A sample Card was available that showed examples of the type of information cardholders can choose to include to share about the impacts of their brain injury and how they would like to be assisted; this can be in writing or in a video.

Deborah presented her talk “Achieving Better Employment Outcomes for People with Brain Injury: The ‘Who What Where When Why’ Project” in a panel on the final day. The Employ Me project focuses on ensuring people with disability who are seeking employment have control over, and are empowered to choose, what and how they want potential employers and others to know about them and/or their disability. Watch for the slides to appear soon on the Brain Injury Australia website.

BIAT staff report that the conference was jam-packed with experience and ideas. Four keynote addresses set the themes: the opening address co-presented by 3 people with lived experience of brain injury, all of whom having been “on both sides of ‘the bed’”: an anaesthetist, an exercise physiologist and an occupational therapist; two international keynotes on boosting brain health globally and reimagining rehabilitation; and the last keynote on maximising recovery.

Day 1 of the conference was a full day of workshops, with Days 2 and 3 filled with short sessions covering everything from new research on long COVID and brain injury, family violence, the lived experience of partners, parents, peers and carers, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; concussion; the diversity of causes of brain injury; positive behaviour support and employment.

BIAT hope to attend the 9thConference in 2024 in Adelaide and BIAT members and supporters are encouraged to come too!

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