Tag Archives: Cheryl Charron

News Coverage – FASD at the Frontline: Dialogue and Strategies for New Outcomes

News Coverage – FASD at the Frontline: Dialogue and Strategies for New Outcomes

Alas – the training and workshop are done and I have a moment to write a blog! Let me begin by saying thank you to everyone who made the FASD events possible – the presenters, the University of Regina President Vianne Timmons, the Honourable Minister June Draude, the volunteers, and certainly not least, the participants. It’s the frontline workers who listened, absorbed, and now carry the messages that were sent during these events.

We’ve had incredible feedback about strategies that were never considered and local resources that were unknown. One of my favourite comments was along the lines of, “It’s nice to know other people are going through the same struggles as I am.” I hope the events held at the University of Regina on April 22 and 23 opened doors for those of you who attended. Frontline workers now have a little bit more in their toolkit to help themselves and each other in their daily work with clients that have FASD.

We are in the beginning stages of sorting through material – surveys, student notes, breakout session materials, and tabletop discussions. We will be aggregating this material, along with local resources, and speaker presentations to create a final report. This report will hopefully provide you with another avenue of resources, tools, and contacts that will assist you in working with individuals with an FASD.

Please feel free to email us at: fasd.research.project@uregina.ca. We’d love to hear your feedback, comments, questions, and concerns about the training, the FASD public event, and the workshop. We would like to build in a section of participant reflections in the final report, and your comments would help!

Click here for video coverage of the workshop, as well as an interview with Cheryl Charron from the Regina Community Clinic.

To read an interview with Dr. Michelle Stewart about the FASD events and her research, click here.

– Krystal Glowatski

Helping young adults with neurodevelopmental disabilities: IRCM ethics experts study the transition from paediatric to adult health care services

Helping young adults with neurodevelopmental disabilities: IRCM ethics experts study the transition from paediatric to adult health care services

By: CNW: A PR NEWSWIRE COMPANY, 3 Feb 2014

Accessed on: 3 Feb 2014

Commentary by: Krystal Glowatski

I am posting a second news blog this week.  I think it’s a timely piece to complement the interview on Regina Community Radio 91.3 FM CJTR, Listen Up program that aired live on Tuesday, February 4.  While Cheryl Charron and Karen Cooper of the Regina Community Clinic touched on a broad range of topics relating to FASD, they are indeed a health clinic, likely helping clients face challenges such as the ones in this article.

Those of you who work in FASD client services and support sectors will be interested to read this.  I know from speaking with professionals working with FASD clients, that the transition from child/youth to adult status is difficult for clients in many regards, such as health care, financial supports, and assumed independence.  This article outlines the difficulties experienced in terms of the health care transition.  In other words, clients with FASD move from a paediatric health care setting into an adult health care system in which privacy is revered, appointments must be kept, and guardians are left standing on the sidelines with little to no ability to help the person with neurodevelopmental challenges.

As Dr. Racine, Director of the Neuroethics research unit at the IRCM contends, “Health care transition is a crucial process in the lives of youth with neurodevelopmental disabilities and their parents…  Transition challenges are likely to be greater among these adolescents because of the complexity of their health care needs and the stigma associated with physical and intellectual disabilities that may accompany their disorders.  Some individuals believe they were suddenly removed from paediatric care and thrust into a foreign system for which they had not been adequately prepared.”

The authors of the study go on to discuss their recommendations for amending this situation.  One such suggestion is to allow flexibility in the age requirement for transition from child to adult health care systems such that the individual is sufficiently developmentally prepared for that transition, as opposed to forcing the transition based on an arbitrary age.

This research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé.  To access the academic journal article please visit: http://www.pulsus.com/journals/abstract.jsp?sCurrPg=abstract&jnlKy=5&atlKy=12663&isuKy=1192&isArt=t&fromfold=Current+Issue&fold=Abstract