Insights & Inspiration

We had a great turn out for our Young Person living with Parkinson's symposium, Insights & Inspiration. Former Trailblazer Brian Grant had some great welcoming remarks to get us started and we had some great speakers. We had about 100 people show up and what a great group of folks they were! Our speakers and their various topics seemed to be well received. We alternate this symposium with our Caregiver Conference, so it will be two years before we have another one.

The next major project that I will be tackling is the development of a Cognitive Behavior Therapy psycho-education/therapy group tailored for care partners of people with PD. This should be a very challenging but very worthwhile project. We have had some initial interest from care partners and we expect this to only grow. There is very little in the way of research that has looked at CBT with carepartners of PWP, and none that I know of that looks at CBT in a group format with carepartners of PWP. If anyone has had any experience in using CBT with carepartners of PWP I would be very interested in connecting with you.

jam

Young People w/Parkinson's disease symposium

Just a quick note. I wanted to make sure I post the link to the young people with Parkinson's disease event that I have put together. It should be a good event and it takes place next weekend.

www.ohsu.edu/xd/research/centers-institutes/neurology/parkinson-center/news/events.cfm

jam

Foremost

For some time now I have been wanting to put together a blog focused on the role of the social worker working with people with Parkinson’s disease (PWP) and their families. A site where other social workers interested in Parkinson’s disease (PD) can come to share their ideas, their successes, their struggles, their stories, or to pose a question as they work to help patients and families live well with PD. It is likely that we face similar challenges in our work, and it is unfortunate that we often work within silos and do not share what works and what does not. So this will be the foremost function of this site.

I have been at national conferences and trainings with other social workers and I consistently leave these trainings and conferences with two shared sentiments:

1. What a great group of Social Workers we have working in the area of Parkinson’s disease and

2. We need to stay regularly connected and share our ideas and resources.

To that end, it is my hope that this site serves this purpose; and that it leads to better service for our patients and families. With that I leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the mother of Social Work:

"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life." -- Jane Addams

jam