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Gerry Brooks, Director of Brain Injury Programs
Gerry Brooks, MA, CCC, CBIT
Director of Brain Injury Programs
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As
Director of Brain Injury Programs, Gerry Brooks has fostered
the development of innovative treatment programs that
integrate clinical services in order to produce positive
treatment outcomes for individuals with traumatic brain
injury.
Gerry has helped to lead the professional staff at Northeast
Center for Special Care to create a fully integrated,
therapeutic community, that is different than the
traditional rehabilitation program. “The Northeast Center
for Special Care’s physical plant and exceptional
rehabilitation staff provide everything necessary for
creating what we consider to be a truly unique program. We
have created a bustling, community of almost eight hundred
individuals who work, play, eat, and enjoy each others
company in a variety of ways, all linked by two important
goals: recovery from brain injury and return to the
individual’s home community."
“The idea is to encourage our Resident-Neighbors to become
a fully functioning member of the Northeast Center Community
as a means of preparing for participation in their home
community. We utilize therapies as supportive of the
individual’s natural interests and activities in the
community.” Brooks continued, “The approach is
person-centered and emphasizes the development of physical,
cognitive, and especially social skills and personal
interests that can be transferred to the home community.”
“Returning to the Community is one thing but it is not
enough. Our goal is returning an individual capable of
living a meaningful and happy life. This requires us to take
rehabilitation to a higher level than most other programs.”
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Gerry
Brooks reviews programming material with Unit Manager
Francine Rivenburgh, LPN |
Gerry's
work at Northeast Center touches on all disciplines and in
fact is devoted to merging the talents of the professional
disciplines and forging a unique collaboration of the almost
500 staff members that represents virtually every clinical
discipline, and many non-traditional ones, such as music,
art, and writing.
“I have been blessed with the best opportunity imaginable
for a professional in this field. Although I’m biased of
course, I believe we have some of the best professionals
anywhere. We challenge each other to be excellent and to
push the boundaries of brain injury rehabilitation which
truly is only in its infancy. Even though I came to the
Northeast Center with many years of experience, I am a
better therapist now than I was at the start because of the
professional environment that exists here.”
“I am proud of the staff here, they bring a sense of
commitment and urgency to work with them every day. They don’t
settle for mediocrity. This is no small feat in this field
of brain injury. Again, the science is in its infancy and
therapists are challenged to visit again and again clinical
problems that stubbornly resist change with mainly their
tenacity, creativity, and will to overcome. It is not a work
for the faint-hearted or those interested in glory of some
kind. It is better suited to a missionary mentality that
many of our therapists exemplify.”
“Our ability to innovate and to help individuals succeed
at the Northeast Center for Special Care is unprecedented in
the U.S. today. The Northeast Center for Special Care is a
stunning example of commitment to ‘total recovery by any
means necessary’ that would be impossible were it not for
an Operator and Administration that supports the work we do
and has in fact, every day I have worked at the Northeast
Center since it opened in 1999, pushed us further to find
new and better ways to serve the individuals we are
privileged to serve.”
“I don’t apologize for how I gush on this topic. The
Center is really that good. We accept individuals with any
combination of problems, we presume potential rather than
limiting our services to those selected for treatment by
what we consider to be outdated prediction methods. As a
result, our task is monumental and yet it is accomplished.”
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Gerry
Brooks giving a presentation entitled TBI Recovery,
Breaking the Cycle of Institutional Dependence, at the
2006 "Mid-Hudson Brain Injury Rehabilitation Conference" hosted by Northeast Center
for Special Care in Kingston, NY. |
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“The
look and feel of the environment at Northeast Center, the human environment is
different, visitors may not be sure what they are seeing at
first. Most are awed by the size and bright colors and
spaces bustling with individuals with an array of
disabilities they would not normally see in their
Communities. The longer you spend here, however, you cannot
help but notice this most important quality of the Northeast
Center for Special Care: here these individuals take on the
challenge of living, leave behind the identity of “a
disabled person,” and learn to face life, face doubt, face
failure, and to dare to dream, just like the rest of
us.”
We can do what other rehabilitation programs do and we can
do many things others cannot. Our particular strength is in
cognitive and behavioral rehabilitation. We focus intensely
on re-developing an individual’s identity. This requires
many things. One thing we must do is to help the individual
recognize that accepting help does not mean accepting
failure. We receive a significant number of referrals of
individuals who were in the Community but failed to make it,
because they refused help. There is an abundance of
assistance in the Community through programs such as the
Medicaid Waiver program. But if an individual refuses help,
they are truly beyond help.”
“Ultimately, we help individuals find themselves. We use
the phrase, ‘Dare to Dream.’ By that we mean that your
life is ahead of you. It may be a different life than you
had but it is a life that still holds the promise of success
as well as failure; of joy as well as sadness. It will be a
life that is challenging, to be sure, one that will test you
and those who love you. It is only through accepting that
challenge that we truly live, however. And this is the
challenge that unites all of us here at the Northeast Center
for Special Care, our Resident-Neighbors, families, and
staff alike - into a community of equals all trying every
day to meet that challenge of living.”
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Gerry
carried the symbolic "torch" at our 2005 winter Olympics
games. |
Gerry’s background is as a licensed speech-language
pathologist who came to Northeast Center for Special Care
after working in private practice devoted primarily to
individuals with neurologically based cognitive,
communicative, and swallowing disorders since the late 1970’s.
One of Gerry’s unique qualities is that he has been a
working therapist for most of his professional career and
has logged thousands of direct therapy hours performing one
on one and group therapies with hundreds of brain injured
individuals. Before coming to the Northeast Center for
Special Care Gerry founded and operated the Center for
Neurologic Communication Disorders in Wappingers Falls, NY
where he conducted an active and innovative cognitive
rehabilitation program. He has served as consultant to
hospitals, home care agencies, and schools and taught on the
graduate faculty at SUNY, New Paltz.
Gerry has given hundreds of presentations to professionals
interested in brain injury rehabilitation, including local
and national conferences. He is a certified brain injury
trainer through the Brain Injury Association of America and
he has written numerous articles on brain injury and a
chapter in a book on counseling entitled, Counseling
Children and Adults with Communication Disorders. His
primary interests are in treatment of motivation, social,
and identity disorders following brain injury.
Gerry is originally from Brooklyn, New York. He loves the
outdoors, philosophy, religion, and the Arts, and is a
sometimes thespian who has appeared in productions of the
local Mohonk Mountain Stage Company’s Reader’s Theatre
with credits including the lead roles in Don Juan in Hell,
The Misanthrope, and Long Day’s Journey into
Night. He and his wife Debbie, an Art Teacher, live in
the Hudson Valley.
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