March is Brain Injury Awareness Month and a great time to get involved in raising awareness for brain injury survivors and their families. However, you can get started spreading awareness of brain injuries at any time of the year.
The largest organization for brain injury awareness and information in the United States is the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA). In addition, there are hundreds of other groups that serve regional or local areas or focus on a certain population living with brain injuries, such as children or military veterans. You can volunteer with one of these organizations, or you can get involved and spread awareness of brain injuries on your own.
Get Involved With a National, Regional, or Local Organization
The Brain Injury Association of America focuses on three goals:
- De-stigmatize brain injuries and brain injury survivors
- Empower those living with brain injuries
- Promote the available support for survivors and their families
As a part of working toward these goals, they sponsor many events and fundraisers nationwide. If you are interested in learning more about the BIAA, you can sign up to support them on their website.
The BIAA offers a list of ideas for fundraisers and brain injury awareness activities that allow supporters to get involved, and they even publish an event guide if you love planning events and want to host a fundraiser and awareness event. This could include participating in or starting a local version of their signature fundraising event, Bowling for Brain Injury℠. As of 2019, these events already occur in nine states, including:
- Illinois
- Maine
- Texas
- Indiana
- Virginia
- California
- New York
- Nebraska
- Missouri.
Alternatively, you could use many of the other events and ideas outlined in their guide to create an event for a local organization to spread awareness or volunteer to help out at an event they already have planned.
Share How Brain Injury Affects Your Life
While some people get involved in a cause without a personal connection, chances are good that your interest in raising brain injury awareness stems from a personal story—you or a loved one suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Sharing your personal story or helping someone who lives with a brain injury tell their story, is a great way to get involved and spread awareness. You can help others make a personal connection and get a better sense of what living with a brain injury looks like by telling your story. Consider speaking at local schools, clubs and civic organizations, and churches.
If you do not like public speaking, you could even make a video or create another type of presentation to tell your story.
Get Creative to Spread Brain Injury Awareness
If you would rather start smaller, you can make a list of creative ways to promote brain injury awareness in your everyday life. This can be as simple as learning facts about the common causes of traumatic brain injury or creating a list of local organizations that provide a specific type of service for survivors. Then, you can use what you learned to educate those around you.
Other simple ideas to help spread awareness include:
- Wear a shirt from your favorite awareness organization or design your own shirt and have it printed to raise awareness
- Add a simple statement or fact about brain injury awareness to your email signature and social media bios
- Hang posters or fliers in local coffee shops, universities, bookstores, and other places with community bulletin boards
- Participate in Brain Injury Awareness Month events next March
- Use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or other social media to post facts and information about brain injuries and brain injury awareness
- Contact your local newspaper or news website about writing an editorial about living with brain injuries and the impact they can have on the survivor, their family, and the surrounding community
Newsome | Melton Supports Brain Injury Awareness and Education
The brain injury attorneys from Newsome | Melton believe it is important to raise awareness of traumatic brain injuries, promote services and other assistance available to brain injury survivors and their families, and end the stigma associated with this type of injury.
Our team handles complex civil litigation, including personal injury, medical malpractice, product liability, defective drug, and wrongful death cases related to traumatic brain injuries, so we have regular contact with brain injury survivors and their families.
If you have questions about the possibility of taking legal action after a brain injury, reach out to our legal team today by calling (888) 808-5977. We offer free case evaluations.