BLINK OF AN EYE INTEGRATIVE CENTER FOR TRAUMA HEALING ADVOCACY AND

With a sole focus on SCI and Trauma Healing, Blink of an Eye® journeys with patients, families, and medical teams from the initial injury period through the difficult days and months that follow. The trauma trained, trauma-healing informed HEAL Team travels to be bedside with families in intensive care units (ICUs) through the earliest days of injury, bringing Hope, Empathy, Advocacy, and Logistical and Medical tips with care and compassion.

The BLINK of an Eye Family Navigation & Support Team provides a 1:1 SCI Navigator for each family, available 24/7, for whatever they need in technical, practical, emotional, and relational support for the first 30 days of injury. This is provided by lived experience SCI Navigators, trained in trauma-healing informed responses and relational intervention, mediation, and conflict transformation skills, provided by the nonprofit at no cost and without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. The Family Navigation & Support team is supported by a world-class SCI Medical Expert Team along with a Wrap-Around Team with expertise ranging from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and insurance issues to integrative health and nutrition, to financial and legal best practices and considerations.

It is BLINK’s mission to support SCI patients and families through the medical and rehabilitation maze, empowering them from the ICU to an in-patient rehabilitation setting, to an out-patient rehabilitation setting, and finally into their homes, schools, workplaces, and communities. Navigators help to guide SCI families in creating a new-normal routine, and to integrate the trauma experience and the reality of living with SCI and its impact on a family system with new role divisions, changes, and dynamics. Navigators assist with the full range of transitions including movement through denial, anger, grief, distillation, numbness, and hyperactivity to integration, acceptance, and optimism.

Life can change in the blink of an eye. There are close to 18,000 SCIs every year in the United States, 80% of which happen to vibrant, active healthy people recreating, driving, or doing their usual activities. While there are approximately 6,000 hospitals in the United States, less than half of one percent have SCI expertise. SCI is a perfect storm for families and medical staff. Medical staff are often not equipped or knowledgeable enough to respond to this complex injury. Families are in shock and often unable to recognize or to effectively address medical errors, or to navigate the complicated medical, financial, and emotional upheaval to their families. Blink of an Eye® seeks to fill these gaps.

Blink of an Eye Podcast is the primary outreach and education arm of Blink of an Eye Nonprofit and shares a common mission.