LESLEY BRABYN
Note: This Lesley Brabyn may be the same person as Lesley A. Brabyn, dog judge as both come from the San Francisco area
Fifteen years ago,
Lesley Brabyn’s two-year-old child was admitted to the emergency room with a
life-threatening asthma attack. Doctors immediately began prescribing
adrenaline-like drugs. The medication allowed her son to breathe but had
extreme side effects, including an inability to sleep or concentrate. As he
grew older, the drugs made it almost impossible for him to attend preschool.
Out of
desperation, Brabyn began to educate herself and learned about other effective
ways to prevent asthma attacks. “Doctors weren’t telling us about prevention,
they were just prescribing drugs!” she says.
So Brabyn and
other parents started the Asthma Support Group of Marin, now the Asthma
Education & Resource Council. Braybn and two part-time nurses provide
training and information about the prevention and treatment of asthma to
asthmatics, parents, child care providers, and health professionals.
Deborah Logan,
president of the Marin Family Child Care Association, says, “The training has
been great because when the state mandated providers to administer nebulizers,
they didn’t provide any training.” This training “removes fear from providers.”
Now, with a Prop.
10 grant, the Council can offer any parent with a child under five an
individualized session with a nurse to discuss asthma prevention and
management. “Parents often leave medical establishments with medications they
don’t know how to use,” says Brabyn.
And with funds from Prop. 10 and donations from pharmaceutical companies, the Council has also been able to make medications more affordable to low-income families.
http://www.4children.org/news/pr10mari.htm
ASTHMA EDUCATION AND
RESOURCE COUNCIL TO EXPAND BAY AREA COMMUNITY-BASED ASTHMA EDUCATION AND WELLNESS
PROGRAM
Three-year, $120,000 grant
from The California Endowment supports program aimed at North Bay counties;
approximately 400,000 suffer from asthma in greater Bay Area
The
California Endowment, the state's largest health foundation, recently announced
a three-year, $120,000 grant to the Asthma Education and Resource Council
(AERC) to expand a community-based asthma education and wellness program,
entitled Empowering Communities for Wellness, for residents in the North Bay
Area counties of Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma. The program will
initially focus on Marin County.
Asthma
affects approximately 400,000 people in the greater Bay Area. This
project aims to build a network of neighborhood individuals and groups affected
by asthma to educate and advocate for an improved quality of life.
Using
this neighborhood based capacity building project, AERC will research, develop
and implement a plan designed to provide an organized outlet for community
concern regarding the health and well-being of its residents.
"The
Asthma Education and Research Council is dedicated to helping improve the
health and quality of life for those affected by asthma by supporting
self-advocacy, education and community activism," said Lesley Brabyn,
founder and executive director, Asthma Education and Resource Council.
"This grant from The California Endowment will help us to reach more Bay
Area asthma sufferers and educate them about how to effectively manage this
chronic condition."
"This
grant to the Asthma Education and Resource Council supports The California
Endowment's commitment to health and well-being issues in California, as it
focuses on empowering communities to change environmental conditions and
individuals to manage and prevent chronic conditions, such as asthma,"
said Jacob Moody, program officer, The California Endowment.
Program
organizers anticipate that the project will have the following outcomes:
·
Improved
quality of life for individuals and families affected by asthma
·
Increased
community awareness of the environmental and community responses necessary to
support positive asthma management, and
·
Fewer
emergency hospitalizations for asthma-related crises
The Asthma Education and Resource Council
was founded by Lesley Brabyn, a mother of two asthmatic children who had
experienced first-hand the chaos created for a family when asthma was
uncontrolled. Since 1993, AERC has provided support groups, information and
referral services, a resource library and a variety of community education
programs for patients, families, health care professionals, schools and
employers.
The
mission of AERC is to improve the health and quality of life for those affected
by asthma by supporting self-advocacy, education and community activism.
This mission has been implemented in partnerships with over 30 community-based
organizations.
The
California Endowment was established in May 1996 as a private foundation.
The Endowment maintains offices in Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco,
and has staff working throughout the state.
The
mission of The California Endowment is to expand access to affordable, quality
health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote
fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. The
Endowment makes grants to organizations and institutions that directly benefit
the health and well-being of the people of California.
http://www.calendow.org/news/NewsReleases/1999/11/nov23_99.html
Prepared by Bob Dalrymple, PO Box 122, Dapto, NSW Australia 2350
eMail: bob@relativelyyours.com