Airborne Films: Airborne Hopes for Young Adults with Mental Health Conditions
February 22, 2011
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Deanna Finch-Smith is Executive Director of the Salvation Army Lawson Ministries, which supports adults with developmental disabilities in residential, day, and employment opportunities. Bruce Ritchie is Moderator & CEO of the Fetal Alcohol Disorders Society, and a single father of a son who was diagnosed with FAS as an infant. They describe the work of their organizations. They explore the challenges that mental health conditions create for young adults. They discuss innovative social approaches to the care of young adults with mental health conditions, such as the for-profit business created by the Lawson Ministries, Airborne Films, in which young adults with mental health conditions are employed. They discuss the conclusions they draw about the future of care for young adults with the mental health challenges they talk about, and say what they would like to see done to provide more help for the family caregivers of the young adults.
Family Caregivers Unite!
Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Variety Channel
Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.
