Brain Injury Awareness Month (BIAM) is recognized throughout the month of June in Canada. Every year, thousands of Canadian women experience intimate partner violence (IPV) potentially causing disabling permanent traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The implications of this have largely been left unexplored.
For this month's throwback post, we decided to feature a project from 2018 — ABI Toolkit — a digital repository of resources addressing this gap in knowledge and services. By raising awareness and education for frontline workers about TBI, the goal was to improve care for survivors who experience IPV that may have resulted in TBI. The toolkit was also intended as a resource for survivors who themselves may not be aware of the connection between their abuse and symptoms of brain injury.
Back in 2018, ABI Research Lab approached PIVOT to design and build this evolving resource. In order to better understand the survivor experience and the gaps in their care, we began our research by interviewing shelter directors and survivors. From this knowledge, we created a journey map of the stages of a survivor’s experience, from the abuse incident through their stay and eventual exit from a shelter. This deep dive into the world of TBI, IPV and women’s shelters enabled us to understand more clearly what needed to be included in the toolkit and how it could be a part of a frontline worker’s day-to-day workflow.