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I’ve written and podcasted about some of the innovative, peer-led brain injury support work coming out of Washington State many times. HeadStrong for Life in Seattle is a partner on the documentary film. I get to do some co-hosting on the Brain Injury Radio/Radio Ability Network with Craig Sicilia, who’s also been a guest on my podcast. There’s one group I haven’t mentioned yet because I’d been saving up to figure out the best way to introduce them. And then they contacted me.
Brain Energy Support Team (BEST) is based in Tacoma, Washington. I want to tell you everything in the world about them right now, but I’m going to hold back. That’s because I’ll be there this week shooting a promo video for them and recording interviews with BEST co-founders and participants. I want to let those things speak for themselves when they come out later in the summer or in early autumn.
[Image description: BEST logo in green and black showing a glowing brain inside someone’s head and swirls all around.]
I mention BEST right now, though, because they’ve asked me to screen some of my short films at their space in Tacoma. We’ll be looking at the old classics “Cooking with Brain Injury” and “Friending with Brain Injury!” as well as the three short films I produced with folks who hadn’t made their own films before from “The Tablet Shorts, Out.” We’ll wrap it up with a meditation on how fun it can be to have lots of intense focus on something you really, really love in “Cat Lady” and end with a conversation. Oh wait, we will end with dessert and some conversation. They won’t forget the dessert.
It’s a huge honor to be asked to create their video because they’re trusting me to help them share their stories. The invitation to screen my films is also a huge deal because almost every time I’ve shown my films outside of Portland, it’s been at professional speech therapy conferences. It will be loads of fun to be in brain injury and disability space, showing the film to peers and families, which I haven’t done in a long time.
This is the Facebook event page with details and lots of cute and sweet posts from the BEST Team.
Event details:
Friday, June 5th
6:30 – 8:00 pm
BEST Learning Center
2607 Bridgeport Way W, Suite 2G
University Place, WA
Free!
Films are all Closed or Opened Captioned
ASL Interpretation is provided
RSVP to Kim Thompson at kimt@brainenergysupportteam.org. We will definitely save some cookies for you!