| |  | | Thank You To Our Sponsors Silver Sponsors Bronze Sponsors A Special Thank You to Our Supporters |
| | Our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Access, and Belonging (DEIAB) statement can be found here. |
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We rely on donations, sponsors and grants to fund our peer programs. If we made a difference in your life or that of someone you love, consider a donation to allow us to continue to assist others as we assisted you. SCIboston is recognized by the IRS as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Your donation is tax deductible to the full extent of the law. |
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| | | Upcoming Events Flyers are clickable. |
| | |  | National Mentoring Month Recap! As Mentor Appreciation Month comes to a close, we wish to recognize all of our mentors and volunteers. We thank all of you for the incredible impact you have made on the lives of those with spinal cord injuries and their families and caregivers. Whether it be the time you spend, the energy, or the invaluable wisdom drawn from your own lived experience, please know the difference you make to those who have spinal cord injuries. Your gift of experience, and hope is immeasurable. Thank you for helping to build a community where everyone has the potential to thrive. SCIboston is deeply grateful for each and every one of you. |
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 | Looking to Connect with a Peer Mentor? Are you or a family member looking to connect with one of SCIboston's trained peer mentors? Many people find it helpful, reassuring, and hopeful to talk to a mentor about adjusting to life after a spinal cord injury. Topics of conversation could include getting back to work or school after a sci, adaptive sports, relationships and intimacy, bladder and bowel management, and more. We match individuals with peer mentors based primarily on gender, injury level, age, interests, and family life, amongst other considerations. SCIboston's mentors also lead many of our virtual support groups, as well as attend them to provide support to others. If you'd like to hear more about the program or wish to connect with someone, please contact SCIboston's Peer Mentor Coordinator, Diane, at diane@sciboston.org to learn more today. Click the HERE to watch a video from our Peer Mentors! To learn more about our other Peer Mentors click HERE! |
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|  If you’ve been thinking about being paired with a Peer Mentor, have questions about how Peer Mentoring works, or would like to become a Peer Mentor to others, watch our most recent Saturday Education Series on our YouTube channel. You will learn more about the success of SCIboston's longstanding Peer Mentoring Program and how to become involved. You will meet several active Peer Mentors who will share their experiences of the life changing impact having a Peer Mentor had on their recovery and the rewards of giving back to others as a Peer Mentor. While you are there, check out our other education series presentations on: SCI & Mental Health: Challenges and Solutions, Nutrition and Metabolic Changes with SCI/D, Cooking with Arash, Returning to School After SCI, Adaptive Driving, a nd more! |
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|  | On January 17 and 18th, the 8th Annual Junior Beanpot Challenge was held at the Foxboro Ice Center. Bishop Feehan, Brookline, Newton North, and Lexington hockey teams competed in the tournament to raise funds for SCIboston's Travis Roy Legacy Grant Program. More than $1,500 were raised to continue Travis' mission to improve the quality of life for those living with spinal cord injury. Thank you to all the players, the Gurdin family, Julie Lacey, Coach Mike Yanovitch, and everyone who donated! Congratulations to Newton North on winning the tournament! To donate to the Travis Roy Legacy Grant Program, the Beanpot page is still live here! |
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| SCIboston's Travis Roy Legacy Grant Program SCIboston is excited to announce the continuation of its quality of life grant program for individuals with a spinal cord injury or disorder and has renamed it The Travis Roy Legacy Grant Program. To read the full press release click here! Our Grant Program assists individuals with a Spinal Cord Injury or Disorder (SCI/D) who demonstrate a financial need. These grants can help assist with obtaining either Durable Medical Equipment or Vehicle Modifications up to $5,000. Examples of Eligible Items: Upgrade and maintenance of wheelchairs, home ramps and lifts, computers, commodes, standing frames, shower chairs/benches, vehicle hand controls, wheelchair locking systems, and more. To learn more about the eligibility requirements, what our grants cover, and to fill out the application click the button below! |
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| | There’s been a lot going on in the past couple of weeks, and with policy moving rapidly, the advocacy newsletter will come out later than usual this month. Some of you may be inspired by recent events to get involved in advocacy, so below are five ways you can take action – besides signing up for Advocacy Emails, of course! -
Contact your state or federal legislators: -
Pick an issue you care about and work towards making a difference: -
Attend an advocacy-related event -
This could be a webinar, a committee meeting, a hearing, a rally, a protest, or a meeting with others in your community to discuss how to support each other! -
Volunteer with an organization that shares your beliefs -
Donate |
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|  | Watch Stacie and Rory tell their story at our 2024 Gala HERE. |
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Spinal Cord Injury Transition Program Stacie Selfridge - TRANSITION PROGRAM LIAISON Stacie oversees SCIboston’s SCI Transition Program, which aims to assist individuals who live in nursing homes to get back to living independently. Stacie brings twenty-plus years of knowledge and experience as an Occupational Therapist to our SCIboston community. We are pleased to announce the SCIboston Spinal Cord Injury Transition Program has had some great successes during it's first two years and we want to continue helping individuals with their independence. Do you know someone with an SCI that is living in a nursing home? We are looking for new candidates who are motivated to move back into the community. Please contact info@sciboston.org for more information or to recommend a candidate. |
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| Virtual Support Groups Join us for one or more of our virtual support groups that meet your needs as an individual, family member, or significant other affected by a spinal cord injury or disorder (SCI/D). Our many virtual groups offer opportunities for open discussion, support, and resources. Younger Adult Group Women's Group Newly Injured Spanish Group After Dark Groups *Relaunched* Family Groups SCI/D Discussion Group And Nutrition Group Click the button to access more information and the zoom links! |
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| Resources Page Our resource page was curated by our staff with information provided by our mentors, group leaders, and other members of the SCI community that includes information about: Caregivers
Getting Back to Work
Housing, Sports & Recreation
Complex Rehab Technology
Transportation
and so much more! Click the button below to check them all out! |
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| | |  | More Than A Golf Lesson Boston’s spinal injury victims get to live lives beyond their wheelchairs thanks to Jerry Donovan ’79 and the deal he made with God. Read the entire article here! |
| |  | Empower SCI Summer Intensive Programs
Applications to all programs are officially OPEN!! We are so excited and cannot wait to see you all there!
Apply today to be a participant, peer mentor, residential aide, or clinical specialist at the link below! Empower SCI is a residential program catered to individuals who have had an injury to their spinal cord. The program focuses on peer mentoring, rehabilitation counseling, and informal knowledge-sharing between individuals who are going through similar experiences and challenges in addition to formal physical therapy, occupational therapy, and recreational therapy. The yearly program consists of a combination of individual and group therapy sessions. Each program caters to the unique needs of the client. The Empower SCI team utilizes client-developed goals to maximize the client’s ability to lead a happier, more meaningful, and more independent life. Empower SCI’s focus is to allow individuals with spinal cord injuries the opportunity to participate in successful rehabilitation at a time in their lives where they are motivated, healed (both mentally and orthopedically), and have the potential to succeed. Empower SCI also runs wheelchair skills courses throughout the United States.
www.empowersci.org/applications |
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 | Creating a Responsive Practice for Individuals with Disabilities Provider Training on Working with People with Disabilities The Massachusetts Health and Disability Program of the Department of Public Health is pleased to offer health care providers training on making your practice accessible. As part of a CDC-sponsored initiative, you may be eligible to receive CMEs/CEs for completing these trainings If you're interested in how providers train to work with people with disabilities, read more about these courses by clicking here! |
| |  | Documenting Disability History Project | | | On October 10, 2024, Mass Humanities awarded the Disability Policy Consortium (DPC) a grant to document the history of people with disabilities across the state of Massachusetts. According to Sandy Novack, the Vice President of the DPC Board of Directors, not many people with disabilities show up in history books. DPC wants to change that by documenting as much as possible the lives of people with disabilities in Massachusetts so that future generations will have role models, not feel as isolated with their disabilities as many feel now, and learn how others have or have not handled life's challenges. People with disabilities and able-bodied people can get exposure to the variety of disabilities people can have, and all the ways that people with disabilities have lived that have not been documented. Everyone has a life story to tell, their own as a person with disability, or maybe as a parent who wants to document raising a child with a disability. Maybe you lived, or worked, at an existing or now defunct institution for people with disabilities and want to tell the story of life in the institution. No story is insignificant. We want to collect stories the best way you can tell them, whether writing essays, a chapter in a book, a whole book or poetry, a graphic novel; or maybe tell your story through photographs, painting, audio, video. We want there to be no barrier to participating and telling your story, no matter how small or large you want your part of the history project to be, your participation is important to this project and we will be creative to help you tell your story. Your story matters. The means is exciting, but just as important is the fact that we are documenting our lives with disabilities, and creating a library of resources not only for DPC, but for departments of disability studies at colleges where students should learn from the disability community, and for libraries in general, newspapers, and online and social media. If you are new to dealing with disability, or just want to learn how others have lived their lives with disabilities, the stories we gather will educate, inspire, sadden, and otherwise touch all who get to read, view and listen to our many stories. Tell us what is most meaningful for you tell—such as what it is like to date with a disability, go to school with a disability, housing with a disability, health care and disability, the work world with a disability, exercise and disability, transportation and disability. There are an endless number of topics you could write about or otherwise document. Whatever you have experienced as a person with a disability is significant and deserves to be shared with others who can learn from your life, such as perhaps your advocacy, your failures and your wins, your attitude toward disability, and your efforts in balancing it all the best you can. To participate in this documenting disability history project: You must live, study, or work in any part of Massachusetts, or have done so at some part of your life as the person with a disability. We are trying to recruit volunteers to help people document their story if, for example, their disability makes it difficult or not possible to document their story without someone's assistance; let us know what assistance you may need and we will work with you on getting your story told. We aim to help you tell any story of your life that you want to tell the world about living with a disability. To let us know you will be working on documenting a life story so we may cheer you on and work with you, to ask a question and learn more, or ask for assistance to tell your story, and to apply to volunteer to help others tell their stories, please email Sandy Novack at the DPC Documenting Disability History Project at: disabilityhistory@dpcma.org, or call the Disability Policy Consortium at 617 307-7775 and say you would like Sandy Novack to call you back. | | |
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| | | Did you miss a newsletter? All our past newsletters can be found here: |
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| SCIboston
2 Rehabilitation Way | Woburn, Massachusetts 01801
(617) 952-5643 | info@sciboston.org |
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