CaringKind Supports Alzheimer's Caregivers in New York City

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most heartbreaking ways to lose a loved one. Instead of seeing husbands, wives, parents or grandparents enjoy their golden years, caregivers often see their loved ones forget their names and faces. Joyous memories become one-sided as recognition and memory fade.

Alzheimer’s disease is an irreversible form of dementia that damages and destroys brain cells, leading to altered thinking and memory loss. It typically first appears when patients are in their mid-60s, although with early onset Alzheimer’s, it can begin earlier. Though scientists have found new ways to treat some Alzheimer’s disease symptoms, there is still no cure. The disease remains a mystery while the number of patients grows with the years. Fortunately, organizations like New York’s CaringKind support caregivers in the midst of their difficulties.

Formerly a chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, CaringKind is now a stand-alone charity that provides free information, tools and training to help support those whose loved ones develop Alzheimer’s or dementia. The organization offers support groups, counseling, education and training seminars, early stages services, a wanderer’s safety program and a 24-hour helpline staffed by professionals.

“At CaringKind, we see people, not a disease,” Lou-Ellen Barkan, president and CEO of CaringKind, said in a press release. “We understand that one caregiver’s experience is not like any other. And we help individuals and families affected by a dementia diagnosis find the right path to best meet their unique needs. From that first call to our 24-hour helpline, our trained professionals offer the guidance caregivers need, when they need it, to make each day a little bit brighter.”

Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. In fact, it kills more people than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. Professionals estimate that more than 5 million people live with Alzheimer’s in the United States and one in three seniors develops the disease.

“In the absence of a cure and effective therapies, good care is the best medicine we have,” Barkan said. “At CaringKind it is our responsibility to create the kind of innovative and compassionate support services that our caregivers deserve and our families need.”

To learn more about this charity and to support its work, please visit CaringKindNYC.org.

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Want to Help a Refugee Child? Think About Getting a Thready

In 2011, Steve Lehmann went to Haiti to help victims of the horrific earthquake that had devastated the country a year earlier. What he saw there changed his life.

“I saw the problem of trauma, particularly in children,” Lehmann said. “There was less attention paid to it at that time than today. My thought was, it’s a big problem, it’s hard to solve and is there anything to be done to address it? Being an engineer, I thought through a bunch of ideas and kept them in the back of my mind.”

After time doing refugee advocacy work for the American Refugee Committee in Washington, D.C., Lehmann went to Notre Dame to get his MBA. There, the ideas he’d contemplated years before came floating back to the forefront. Finally, the answer struck home: teddy bears. After all, Lehmann’s own stuffed animal, Floppy, had been an incredible source of comfort for him growing up. Why shouldn’t it be the case for refugee children too?

Children who have teddy bears develop a strong psychological connection with their comforting companions. Too often, these sources of solace for refugee children are left behind, lost or destroyed while fleeing from their homes or during life at the camps. Children who already have few tools to cope with the trauma of their situations have one less significant childhood coping mechanism taken away as well.

As he developed the idea for a special teddy bear, he and his partner, Andrew Jones, a roommate from college, reached out to researchers to develop a kit to cope with trauma. Inspired by Dr. Megan Marsack’s research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Lehmann and Jones created a psychological care and coping kit, which they also call a psychological first aid kit, developed specifically for refugee children. Inside the kits are cards with pictures depicting trauma coping techniques that parents and aid workers can use when working with the refugee children.

But the work reaches beyond placing specially designed teddies, which Lehmann and Jones have dubbed Threadies, into the arms of children. The very manufacturing method has been designed to help at-risk women in the West Bank of Israel gain independence through work. Profits go to fund children’s programming for refugees in the West Bank. But that’s just the beginning.

When you buy a Thready bear, its twin bear is sent to a refugee child somewhere in the world. Threadies has partnered with various nonprofits, including the Karam Foundation, which distributes the bears to children in refugee camps. Lehmann went to refugee camps in Jordan to test out the specialized bear prototype before going to market. There they saw children hugging the bears, rubbing the fuzzy ears against their faces or between their fingers, and quickly developing bonds with their toys.

The design of the Thready allows for easy repairs. “The patchwork nature of the bear lends itself to mom mending and adjusting it over time, whereas with a Mickey Mouse, probably not,” Lehmann added.

So far, Thready bears have made their way to three continents. Based on the date you bought the bear, you can see where its twin landed. Since October 2015, Threadies have gone to Reyhanli, a village on the Syria-Turkey border which now houses thousands of people fleeing from the chaos in Aleppo, Syria.

Interestingly, Lehmann has never given a Thready to a refugee child — and he’s OK with that. In fact, he’s happy just seeing the pictures.

“The purpose of giving the bear is to develop a bond. We wanted bears to be given by parents or psychologists, or health workers,” Lehmann said. The bonds between the givers and the refugee children have lasting impact as the children work through their trauma.

Love the mission of Threadies? You can buy a bear for your loved one or donate one to a refugee child in need. It’s a gift that’s sure to be treasured.

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This Mom Fought for Her Son All the Way to the Supreme Court

Imagine receiving threats from an international stronghold determined to take money from your child’s care.

That’s exactly the situation in which Pam Harris of Lake County, Illinois, found herself when she decided not to join a personal support care workers’ union. Her fight even landed her before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pam takes care of her 27-year-old son, Josh, who has severe disabilities. Instead of placing him in a care facility, she decided to stay at home and be a personal care support worker to her son. Technically, she is a state contractor. She submitted her fingerprints, fills out monthly reports and welcomes a case officer to visit their home and check on Josh.

Josh’s Medicaid stipend technically counts towards Harris’ salary, though the family uses the money to take care of their son. According to Harris, the standards to be a part of this Medicaid program are extremely specific and rigid. It’s a hard life, but one she wouldn’t change for the world.

Harris’ problems began in 2009, when then-Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed an executive order mandating that personal support care workers have union representation. This meant that some of the money from Josh’s Medicaid check, which is capped by federal law, would go to a public-sector union known to spend funds on political officials’ campaigns.

In other words, Gov. Quinn’s executive order took money away from Josh and gave it to the unions without giving Harris the opportunity to opt out. What’s more, the executive order gave away confidential medical information.

“Now, our sons and daughters have to fit very specific requirements for this Medicaid program,” Harris said. “And it’s medical criteria. So, not only did he give them our names, our home addresses, he gave them confidential medical information about our sons and daughters. What a violation of our privacy. I was livid. How dare he do that?”

A general election was held for the primary support care workers to decide whether they wanted to join the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) or the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). They weren’t, however, told that they had the opportunity to vote against unionizing — until Pam Harris spoke out.

“Nobody was telling me and these union families what their rights were in the election,” Harris said. “I kind of became a squeaky wheel.”

In the election, voters selected neither union. However, the governor wouldn’t rescind his executive order, and the voting process repeated every year until the unions won.

Harris reached out to her representative, James Durkin, to pass a bill through the state legislature that would force the governor to rescind the order based on the election results. The Harrises and members of two other families went to the Illinois Capitol in Springfield to testify before a legislative committee and were greeted by 18,000 SEIU protestors. Despite Josh going back to the hotel because of a panic attack, Pam returned to give her testimony.

“Then it was our turn and the committee chair stood up, handed the gavel to one of the committee Republicans and all of the Democrats on the committee got up and walked out,” Harris said. “Right before they left, they all voted no. So I gave my testimony to all of three Republican committee people. That’s when I realized I wasn’t going to get any justice for my son or the participants in the program.”

Shortly thereafter Harris contacted the National Right to Work Legal Foundation (NRTW) in Washington, D.C., to see if they would represent her in a federal court case. They did, and soon the lawsuit Harris v. Quinn wound up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Until the lawsuit reached the high court, life had continued as normal for the Harris family. However, when it became apparent Harris had a chance to win against the unions, Harris began receiving threats, nasty phone calls and even visits to her front door.

“Once oral arguments were scheduled,” Harris said, “then it appeared that the outcome of Harris v. Quinn could indeed affect the outcome of public-sector unions, not only in Illinois, but in the United States. As a result, whenever you are a participant in an activity that is going to negatively affect someone’s bottom line, you stand to catch some repercussions for that.

“When people can’t argue or they can’t rebut your argument, they tend to attack your character,” she continued. “That’s really what happened.”

However, the fight was worth it. In June 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Pam Harris, stating that she and other primary care support workers didn’t have to join the union. It was a stunning victory propelled by one woman standing resolutely next to her disabled son, not willing to be pushed over.

Despite the hardship over the five years it took to get the case through the system and into the Supreme Court, Harris wouldn’t change a thing.

“No, I didn’t make any money,” Harris said. “No, I got nothing out of this other than a great respect for our country’s judicial system … I’ve learned that if you’re a mom in Illinois and you’re being wronged, that there is a process to follow. It takes time. It takes sacrifice. But in the end, you have these nine brilliant minds, who heard both sides, and decided that I was right and Gov. Quinn was wrong.”

Harris is grateful to have had the opportunity to stand up for the sanctity of the family.

“There’s great satisfaction in knowing that the freedom to choose and to protect our families remains intact,” Harris said. “The idea of the SEIU or AFSCME or any public-sector unions intruding into family homes and inserting union contracts between the carer who provides for their disabled son or daughter is chilling. It’s frightening. We should never open ourselves to that possibility.

“We must do what we can to protect that bond between parent and child.”

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Grandparents As Parents Supports Relatives Raising Other Family Members' Children

Sylvie de Toledo had just finished her master’s degree in social work when her sister unexpectedly died, leaving behind a young son. The boy’s grandparents became legal guardians and the rest of the family quickly stepped in to communally raise him. As a new social worker, de Toledo began to see that her nephew’s situation was not unique.

“I started doing outpatient therapy with children and families,” de Toledo said, recalling 1983. “And all the kids I was being assigned, it seemed, were being raised by their grandparents. I was seeing in my work the same issues … my nephew was going through and his grandparents were going through.”

The problem clearly was widespread, and de Toledo wanted to do something about it.

“I decided there had to be a way to provide some mutual support for the families because they all felt they were the only ones in this situation,” she said. “They didn’t know anyone else and the kids thought they were the only ones being raised by relative care parents.”

She received permission to start a limited-time support group, but when she saw how widespread the issue was, she asked for a longer-term group. She began seeing that, in addition to mental health support, sometimes families had basic needs — like food, clothing — that also needed to be met. So, in 1987, she started Grandparents As Parents (GAP) as a way to provide more holistically for families in these heart-rending situations.

GAP started out helping grandparents care for the needs of their grandchildren, but quickly ballooned into helping any relative who was caring for a family member’s at-risk child. The nonprofit provides mental health services in both individual counseling and support groups, safety net services that help provide for basic material needs, and grants to cover unexpected financial difficulties. It also coordinates educational classes, advocacy teams and legal support for families navigating the court system. According to Carmen Garcia Hoffman, GAP’s chief operating officer, the charity serves about 3,500 people in the Los Angeles area.

De Toledo says that the charity, funded by donations and the occasional grant, has been able to survive for almost 30 years because grateful grandparents have generously given back.

“I’ve been really lucky to be helped by so many grandparents to help it grow,” de Toledo said. “Relatives who have gotten help from the organization have wanted to give back to help it grow to help more families.”

The GAP community feels like a family, de Toledo said. When a caregiver falls ill, another family will watch the caregiver’s child. When someone needs help around the house, another family will volunteer. Even more, de Toledo makes herself available 24 hours a day to anyone who needs help.

“I have been so fortunate in my career to do something so meaningful with the tragedy of my sister’s death,” she said.

Thanks to de Toledo’s efforts, thousands of lives have been changed.

Touched by the work of this wonderful organization? Let them know you care by donating on their website, Grandparentsasparents.org.

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This Charity Gives Homeless Pregnant Women a New Start

Martha Ryan began her philanthropic career in the Peace Corps. Only after she became a nurse practitioner and enrolled to get her master’s degree in public health did she start working with homeless women in San Francisco.

“I had not intended to do what I’m doing,” Ryan said. “It grew out of a volunteer effort.”

Encouraged by a mentor, Ryan honed in on helping homeless, drug-addicted women in the late 1980s. As she was doing this work, she began to notice an uptick in the number of homeless families.

“There’s always the homeless, but they were always adults,” Ryan said. “To have women expecting a baby homeless on the street and women with young children with no place to go, that was new.”

After seeing the desperate need for prenatal care for these women, Ryan applied for a grant. She received $52,000, enough to start the Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP) with the help of two other hired workers.

As the years progressed, she began hiring former clients to work with the women. She believes this was critical to the organization’s success, since the women knew the struggles first-hand, and were able to inform Ryan about areas needing focus. Today, HPP has a staff of 80 people, half of whom are former clients.

“If I did anything right in life, it was that I listened to them,” Ryan said.

Because of their input, the Homeless Prenatal Program began adding more and more services. Now, HPP helps women obtain housing, educates them on women’s health and provides employment training, economic education, computer training, mental health care and more.

“Today we are really working with the social determinants of health: housing, domestic violence, poverty, food,” Ryan said. “Those are the things we try to make sure people have so they can be healthy.”

The organization encourages women to pursue higher education and helps them attain jobs. Ryan believes these women want independent lives and knows education and employment are their way out of the poverty hole.

“People don’t want a handout,” Ryan said. “They want to be able to provide for their own families.”

Want to help the Homeless Prenatal Program? You can donate money to their cause. Or, if you want to donate something tangible, they’re always looking for diapers.

“Diapers [are] always a huge need,” Ryan said. “Especially the larger sizes: 4, 5 and 6.”

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How Moms Against Sexual Abuse Is Transforming Lives

Dr. Claire Reeves knows too well about the monsters preying on children in America. A psychologist, Reeves often testifies in court in sexual assault cases involving children. But in 1992, she’d had enough of just testifying. She wanted to do something about a recurring issue she kept coming across: courts returning children to parents accused of sexually abusing them.

So, during that year, she founded Mothers Against Sexual Abuse (MASA), a nonprofit devoted to educating the public on child sexual abuse, providing resources for parents of abused children and helping adult survivors. From meager beginnings, the organization caught fire when Reeves spoke on a major California radio show shortly after forming MASA. She wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

Over 200 phone calls rang in for MASA from victims, and MASA scrambled to gather volunteers to return the calls. Then a production company in Hollywood filmed a public service announcement for MASA and donated the tapes to the nonprofit. MASA sent tapes to every major TV outlet across the country, hopeful that a few would air it. Instead, it aired on all of them.

From there, MASA’s influence grew. Thanks to help from various professionals, MASA gathered a national referral list of names of psychologists and legal personnel. They created a court watch program to oversee judges’ rulings in the cases of child sexual abuse in California. They began holding monthly meetings where victims could meet with psychologists and law enforcement to think of ways to protect victims’ rights.

But they didn’t stop there. They worked through the legal system to remove the statute of limitations for cases of incest and child sexual abuse in California. They began educational platforms to alert the public to signs of child sexual abuse on a national level, something desperately needed even now.

According to the nonprofit Darkness to Light, 1 in 10 children are sexually assaulted before they reach the age of 18; 90 percent of victims know their attackers; and, sadly, only 4 percent to 8 percent of children report the abuse.

The cost to an abused child is immeasurable to the person, but it also touches your life, whether you know it or not. The financial consequences affect every taxpayer. Financial costs for health care, criminal justice, child welfare, special education and productivity amount to about $210,000 per victim.

Want to learn more about how to spot sexual abuse in the lives of children near you? Check out the MASA website for more information.

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The 'Cajun Navy' Is Helping Victims of Louisiana's Flooding

Rob Gaudet is an engineer by trade, but ever since flooding started in Louisiana last month, he’s been in an office, coordinating efforts by the newly coined, citizen-led Cajun Navy.

Gaudet didn’t start the Cajun Navy; he found the organic and thriving group already operating on Facebook. At first he wanted to go into the field to help rescue people. But he soon saw he could bring his organizational skills to further the mission in a bigger way.

And what is the mission of this peculiarly named group? Composed of volunteers, the Cajun Navy formed to rescue people stranded in their homes after deluges saturated southern Louisiana over seven days in August. Group members refused to wait for FEMA, got their own boats and began coordinating with local officials to launch rescue missions. The Cajun Navy has helped hundreds.

The Cajun Navy operates by leveraging technology to its advantage. People requested help on their Facebook pages and, working alongside law enforcement, the group used applications like Zello, a walkie-talkie app, to find them. Meanwhile, a woman in Illinois acted as dispatcher.

Gaudet believes the flooding wasn’t receiving sufficient media attention, so the Cajun Navy launched a campaign to change that.

“We weren’t waiting for the media to tell our stories, we told them ourselves,” Gaudet told Everyday Heroes.

Thanks to that strategy, the narrative has changed.

“We’re getting more media attention now than [during the flooding],” he said, “and it’s thanks to the Cajun Navy.”

And just because the flood waters have receded doesn’t mean the need isn’t vast. Now the biggest threat to the area is mold setting in on the homes. The Cajun Navy is trying to build a volunteer army to help clean up.

“This is a big deal — 120,000 homes were destroyed. It’s staggering,” Gaudet said. “To fix that, we need an enormous volunteer effort.

It’s more than the homes that are at stake; it’s peoples’ memories, too. The family keepsakes, the memorabilia, the heirlooms. All are at risk of being lost to the mold.

“We basically have 60 days to save memories,” Gaudet said, “and we need as many volunteers as we can get.”

Are you in the region or able to help the Cajun Navy? They need you. Go to CajunNavyFoundation.org to let them know you’re here.

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Girl Forward Helps Refugee Girls Resettle in the US

Blair Brettschneider was in AmeriCorps when she started working with a Burundi refugee family. Wanting to help as much as she could, Brettschneider tutored the eldest daughter in the family, 18-year-old Domi. Little did she realize how Domi would change her life.

Shortly after she started working with the teen, Brettschneider saw all of the challenges — language and educational barriers, culture clashes — that Domi and other refugee girls faced when they entered the U.S. Soon she decided to begin her own Chicago nonprofit, which she called GirlForward, that would work specifically with refugee girls. And she tackled all of this despite being just 22 years old.

“We started with a small group of girls I knew from the agency and grew from there,” Brettschneider told Everyday Heroes.

From these humble beginnings five years ago, GirlForward has grown into an organization with programs involving mentorship and education. Each refugee girl entering Brettschneider’s program is paired with a female mentor who meets with her once a week. The duos concentrate on goal-setting and life skills. The organization also runs Camp GirlForward, a daily camp that runs up to eight weeks during the summer. Camp leaders tutor the girls to help them become more comfortable in their classrooms and build their English skills. Attendees also enjoy field trips.

Chicago also has a Safe Spaces Project. GirlForward opens up classrooms in the group’s location for refugee girls to drop in and receive help with homework. These are girls who don’t necessarily have time to commit to or don’t want a mentor; they simply want a place where they can hang out and practice their English. Right now Chicago has 50 girls in the mentorship program and 150 who attend the Safe Spaces Project.

Of all the things GirlForward has done, Brettschneider says she’s most surprised that they’ve shifted their focus toward academics.

“I guess I didn’t realize we’d get so much into the schools, being innovative and creating our own curriculum and figuring out what we can do with it beyond our summer program,” Brettschneider reflected. “That’s something I’ve really enjoyed in just the past year.”

GirlForward recently started a new branch in Austin, Texas. Brettschneider says that Texas has the largest number of refugees in the nation and leaders there were looking for help.

“We had a lot of support from the community and agencies [in Austin] wanted us there,” she said.

The Austin branch is looking for volunteers to staff its mentorship program.

If you or anyone you know may be interested in helping GirlForward, please contact them through their website, www.girlforward.org.

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Family Promise Builds a Sustainable Future for Homeless Families

Buying a sandwich for a homeless woman on a New York City street was a life-changer for Karen Olson.

More than 30 years later, the initiative Olson started after that simple exchange of kindness and conversation has helped over 700,000 people in 47 states. Olson will never forget the humble beginnings of the organization she founded, now called Family Promise.

That initial interaction in the early 1980s became a regular routine, she said.

“Sandwiches became a vehicle to show that we cared,” Olson told Everyday Heroes Radio.  “[The homeless] were hungry for food, but they were more hungry to see that we really cared for them.”

At the time, Olson worked at a marketing firm. But she began spending her extra moments caring for homeless individuals and, more increasingly, homeless families. She didn’t feel equipped to do it, but she did it anyway.

“I’m not a social worker. I don’t have a degree in nonprofit management,” Olson said. “What difference could I make?”

As it turns out, quite a bit.

Family Promise now has 2,002 affiliates across the country working to help homeless individuals and families achieve a sustainable home and independence. They do this in a number of ways, involving everyone from social workers to mentors to the wider community to help their participants succeed.

But how do they do this? Find out on this week’s Everyday Heroes Radio with Jodi Carroll.

To donate to this incredible initiative, please visit FamilyPromise.org

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