Our group was initially formed as a social and support opportunity for those who had been affected by a traumatic brain injury. It was a wonderful opportunity to speak with others with a shared experience and we were soon to realize that having the great help of the same speech pathologist, who along with another of our members had started the group, was not all that we had in common.
While our stories were all unique, the challenges we had faced and were still facing were very similar. For all of us one of the toughest we faced was trying to get help from our insurance companies. We were made to undergo exhaustive testing and stressful combative interviews while constantly having to prove we legitimately needed the benefits that we had paid for. The process "added insult to injury" as we desperately tried to recover and put our lives back on track. Our strong desire to make this a fairer and more compassionate system, started our journey together into advocacy and our fight to try and seek change and accountability from the insurance industry.
We have worked with McMaster University to develop a report, petitioned our MPs and visited Queen's Park to share our concerns and have had the support of and privilege of working with The Ontario Trial Lawyers Association, FAIR and others. Along the way we have established connections with many good people and organizations that were also advocating for change.
While we will never stop advocating for the government to hold the industry to account, or support others who are trying to do the same, we also began to feel that we had much more to share that might directly help those immediately who had suddenly found themselves in a very unfamiliar and scary place.
We hope that our site will provide help in some way as you navigate a life changing injury. Please read our stories, learn about our projects and make use of our resources list.
Our current project, which we believe might be very helpful is a personal guide. This guide is in the very final stages and will soon be available on our site. We hope you can make use of it to whatever degree is helpful to you, your family and your personal situation.
