Question:
I talked to the law enforcement liaison person and she said it was heart-breaking how many people with organic brain damage were being locked in jail. Now, if someone exhibits any type of bizarre or unusual behavior or has an ID bracelet or other form of identification she is called and makes the decision about what happens to the individual. She is on call 7 days a week 24 hours a day. The local BIA is having a conference here on Oct.26th and the whole purpose is education for all public servants whether they are paramedics, nurses, teachers, law enforcement, etc. This hopefully will help some with the problem of lack of information and education here. But unfortunately there is still the problem here and many other places of there just not being any appropriate placement available.

Answer: I just thought I'd inform you all, in the state of CA one of the public policy advocates for the Brain Injury Association of CA, formerly CA Head Injury Foundation, and others working with brain injury services in San Jose, CA along with other board members on the BIACa had a symposium last year geared to educate law enforcement on brain injury. "CA's State Council on Developmental Disabilities, which funded Project LEAD (Law Enforcement of Disabilities) in 1994, has now added TBI to the list of developmental disabilities covered in its training materials. Terry Stimpson, M.S., assisted with the curriculum on TBI." I just quoted from the Summer/Fall issue of BIA's magazine, TBI Challenge !. This symposium and how to go about getting the training materials was discussed in detail in the last edition of BIACa's newletter, Headlines and TBI Challenge, too (I think on the latter). It's something I plan to cover in a future issue of my group's newsletter, East Bay Brain Injury Connection. I send the local police departments a copy of our newsletter, too. We consider it a public service announcement on brain injury. In the fall edition, I plan to cover the BIA and BIAC (who, when, how and why they were founded) and the sites on the information highway about brain injury. I also have the prospect of a neurosurgeon and neurologist who specialize in brain injury to be "medical doctors" on call to answer questions from our readership.