GROUND-BREAKING CONFERENCE AIMS TO HELP
The inaugural conference for a newly-formed charity set up to provide specialist educational services for young people with acquired brain injuries will take place in November, it has been announced.
Nottingham-based trust-ed will host Education after acquired brain injury: The Way Forward at the East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham, with the aim of raising awareness and understanding of the long-term education need of children and young people with acquired brain injuries.
Jane Goulding, a personal injury specialist at solicitors Freeth Cartwright, which is organising the event, commented: “Every child matters, and children with acquired brain injuries have unique special needs that need to be addressed on an ongoing basis.
"Not only will this conference have leaders in their field speaking to delegates, it will be groundbreaking because it will focus on the concept of education as rehabilitation, emphasising the need for the provision of short and long term education and assessment facilities to help young people with acquired brain injuries fulfil their potential and putting the family central to the success of that rehabilitation."
Conference chairman will be former University of Nottingham consultant Dr Jonathan Punt, a specialist in paediatric neurosurgery and now a barrister at No 5 Chambers. Speakers will include Roberta DePompei PhD, a professor and director of speech- language pathology and audiology at the University of Akron, Ohio, who is an acknowledged expert in the field of acquired brain injury and author of many respected publications.
Another speaker will be Dr Ron Savage EdD, who is now Executive Vice-President, North American Brain Injury Society and has worked with children and young people with acquired brain injuries for over 30 years and has started, directed and consulted on specialised brain injury programmes across the United States.
Also speaking will be consultant clinical, paediatric neuropsychologist Dr Judith Middleton, who has specialised in this field for many years, has managed rehabilitation services and is a trustee of the Child Brain Injury Trust, and Dr Nick Armstrong, barrister specialising in education law, Matrix Chambers. There will also be a number of young people, teachers and family members who will be speaking from personal experience.
The conference, taking place on Monday, November 12, between 9.15am and 5pm, has been designed for a range of audiences, including solicitors, barristers, brain injury case managers, therapists, social workers, teachers and social workers, as well as insurers, lecturers, family members and psychologists. CPD points are available (Law Society and Bar Council).
There are a number of places still available at the conference and a range of sponsorship and exhibition packages are on offer to organisations.
For more information about the conference, or to book a place, contact Julie Scheller by email at Julie.scheller@freethcartwright.co.uk, or call her on 0115 935 1879.
To discuss the sponsorship opportunities on offer please contact Fiona Pritchard by email at fiona.pritchard@freethcartwright.co.uk or by phone on 0115 936 9415 or Kate Rudd by email at kate.rudd@freethcartwright.co.uk or by phone on 0845 634 2535.
For more information about trust-ed, log on to www.trust-ed.org
ends 9 Aug 2007
CHILDREN WITH ACQUIRED BRAIN INJURIES