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NEW YORK, NY – The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation and its National Advisory Board will hold a news conference today outside the SoHo Apple Store in downtown Manhattan at 2p.m.
The following people will be attending:
Patrick Donohue, Founder of The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation
Sarah Jane Donohue, 3-year-old who was shaken when she was only 5 days old, breaking 3 ribs, both collarbones and causing a severe brain injury.
Darryl Gibbs, Founder of the Cynthia Gibbs Foundation, whose daughter Cynthia was killed due to Shaken Baby Syndrome, a National Spokesman for The National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome and a National Advisory Board Member of The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation
Jennipher Dickens, Communications Director of The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, whose 2-year-old son, Christopher, was shaken by his biological father when he was only 7 weeks old causing permanent brain damage.
Location: The Apple Store, located at 103 Prince Street (corner of Greene Street), New York, New York.
Time: 2:00 p.m. (EST)
The mission of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation is to create a model system for all children suffering from Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury (PABI), the number one cause of death and disability for children in the United States. PABI affects children and young adults from birth through age 25 and includes both traumatic and non-traumatic causes. Traumatic causes include Shaken Baby Syndrome and other forms of abusive head trauma as well as motor vehicle accidents, falls, blast injuries from war, being struck by an object and sports concussions. Non-traumatic causes include strokes, meningitis, ischemia, poisoning, pediatric AIDS, lack of oxygen to the brain, brain tumors, and substance abuse.
The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation has gathered the “best of the best” in the field of pediatric neurology and neurorehabilitation on its National Advisory Board, and together these experts drafted a 65-page National PABI Plan, which outlines the proper continuum of care for children with PABI from prevention, acute care, rehabilitation and on through integration into adult systems. Sarah Jane Brain State Lead Centers of Excellence are being established in every state as well as D.C. and Puerto Rico. These centers will ensure the full implementation of the PABI Plan, the goal of which is to develop a “seamless, standardized, evidence-based system of care universally accessible for all individuals and their families regardless of where they live.”
The organization is hosting a 15-city American PABI Heroes Tour from May 3-17, 2009, featuring musicians who are sponsoring families of children and young adults with PABI, including a 2-hour panel discussion around one of the 7 PABI Categories of Care in each city (prevention, acute care, reintegration/long-term, mild TBI, rural/tele-health, registry/healthcare IT, and adult transition).