bindwaves intro music
Hi, I'm Olivia stroke, survivor and member of BIND.
And hi, I'm Carrie, a stroke survivor, and also a member of BIND. And today we welcome Kevan Beijan. Who is a licensed professional counselor? Um, with at Baylor Scott and white rehab. Brian and Brian, sorry, saying what we do when we are talking about Brian and Kevan all day. Um, So Kevan actually also served as VP on BIND's very first board. So that's a little. And exciting stuff help establish BIND. So we've got to lots of questions to ask them about that and little fun fact.
Um, Kevan has been several of our counselors in different area rehabs around the way. He is the person that taught us the unofficial game of BIND. And that is rumikube. So if you haven't played, you need to play. It's been adapted for the brain injured, but it's, we all play it and love it. So Kevan welcome so much for being here today.
Thanks for inviting me.
Okay, so just our listeners can get to know a little bit more about you. Go ahead and just tell us a little about yourself.
Um, Kevan Bejian. I'm a licensed professional counselor, as you said. Um, I've been working in neuro rehab for about 20 years. And I did some private practice counseling before that. Um, and as you said, I've worked at a few different locations. Um, started off at a really tiny little neuro program in Denton Regional Medical Center when there was such a thing. And, uh, actually had been a recreation therapist at first. And as I finished my Master's degree in counseling.
Um, Uh, Dr. Jacquelyn Weeby, who is one of them neuropsychologists. Uh, at that time. Asked me to do a couple of groups and things. And. Well, the rest is kind of history. So.
And so, um, as a licensed counselor, um, why did you decide to start working with Brain injury survivors?
Or how? Yeah, I started, I mean, I was doing, like I said, I was doing a private practice. I was doing marriage and family therapy. I was trying to get hours actually for my internship as I was finishing. My degree. And they asked me to do. Um, A, um, Like a self-help group or support group. And to do a little bit of adjustment counseling with a couple of the clients they had at that time. And that kind of introduced me to sort of what was going on, but it was a really unusual situation.
A lot of therapies are super. Tactile and involved and they touch you and they get up in your personal space. Counselors. Don't do that. And, um, I got a little concerned, you know, I'm working in a hospital setting. I mean, it's an outpatient day, neuro, but still there are a lot of physical needs going on. And I called the Board. Um, of Counselors, um, The executive board and I got ahold of the right person. I think that day. And I was asking her, I was like, I've got this, this opportunity.
And I kinda like to pursue it, but I'm not entirely sure. These people have a lot of like real, like you have to help, you have to touch, you have to do these things. And I'm worried about boundaries and I don't know what the rules are. And she said, give me an example. And I said, well, I mean, probably the most serious example of be someone who needed to use the restroom. And needed assistance. And she says, is there anyone else to help? And I'm like, usually yes, but.
The reality is sometimes it might be me.. And so. She said, well, what would happen if you did not help? I said, well, they'd soil themselves. And she said. We do not allow people to humiliate themselves. That's breaking an entirely different boundary. And I said, okay. I said, well, they also want me to do like a lot of testing and a lot of education. And we do activities. And she said, well, that's not hard. She goes, counselors do testing. We do lots of testing.
Um, cognitive testing, mood testing. She said, if you were a vocational counselor, you'd go on job sites, you do assessment, you do coaching. If you were working in play therapy, you do activities and give feedback. And she said you might even work with adolescents and do art or do other things too. Allow that person to express themselves. And I said, well, it sounds like you're leaving the door pretty wide open. And she said, you're leaving the door. I'm leaving the door really wide open.
Because your job is not to make them happy. Your job is to help them have the greatest degree of self efficacy. With the least amount of intervention by you. She said, if you can get out of the way enough that they can be more independent, you're being a counselor. And I said, so all of that stuff, and she said all of that stuff. So for 20 years, I've fallen in love. With working with people, recovering from these really life-changing events.
And then watching the amazing successes that happen constantly. It's the best job.
Well, thank you for stepping through that door. That's wonderful.
Okay, so now we're going to switch a little bit. We mentioned that you were on our original board of Bind. So, how did you actually get involved with bind? I think I know the answer, but i'm gonna let you tell it.
You were there in the days. Um, yeah, I was working with you at a small hospital in Dallas that doesn't exist anymore. And it was during the time that things were not going very well at that hospital. That. Um, a few of the different therapists, which included. Um, BIND's original Executive Director, Valerie Gotcher. Um, our first president, Dr. Kelly Beck, myself, Dan Smith and Alice Petranek, And a couple of Valerie's friends from her previous life who knew things about, um, Like.
Uh, non-profit organizations and finances. And we started talking about, you know, This, this. Um, program that Valerie observed up in Chicago. And she was just amazed by it. And so we kind of got brought into that conversation. And it took. We took a couple of years and we were maybe a couple. Or three years and building it up. Before, you know, um, 2011 actually happened and we're meeting around Valerie's, you know, coffee table.
We were trying to come up with, you know, BIND was not the original name. We had thought it was good where it was going to be upper room. At one point, he. The head upper room. And we kept coming up with these great names and they were stolen by other people before us. So.
It was not meant to be.
That's right. So Valerie said, what about Brain Injury Network of Dallas BIND? And so that was the original introduction to that. And. Um, we got our paperwork together. We got our 5 0 1 C 3 through the state. And found ourselves having to nominate one another for positions on the board. And of course, Valerie was going to be the Executive Director because she was the one who knew what was going on. So, yeah, that was how we got going.
That's a great story. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that. Um, yeah. So tell me a little bit more about kind of your involvement, um, as a Board of Director, Um, kind of what was the vision for BIND when you, um, you know, when, when, when this came to be.
So we were all. Very invested neuro rehabilitation specialists at that point. Um, we'd gone through a really rough experience and we really wanted to continue helping people, and we really wanted to continue working together. And, um, When we found out about the Clubhouse model, the work order day. We really started to say, you know, kind of saying to ourselves that this is really the step, even beyond what we had been doing. You know, this is people who are no longer under direct medical care.
These are people, at least therapeutic care. These are people getting back into their lifestyles with people that they relate to and doing the things that matter to them. This is kind of cool. So. We. Met with, um, the International. Um, Brain Injury, Clubhouse Association. Yeah. Um, at their conference in Virginia. Um, in 2010. And, um, it was there. We were first able to actually sit in on a planning meeting with the members. And I'm sitting at, or watching this thinking, who is this guy?
He was leading the group and they, oh yeah, he's a member. And you know, he had this type of injury. I think he had a stroke, but I don't recall for sure. And yeah, he was a NASA, um, you know, engineer and like, wow, that's amazing. And they're doing, I was like, so who who's Ray who runs the place. And then. Cool. The members do. What. Well, the members do, and I watch the thing happen and they did. You know, there's all this time. It's for the various units that they had at their clubhouse.
And then we met a couple of other people from other clubhouses and we're like, this is astonishing. And we got excited.
That's awesome. I love it. I guess that I kind of knew all that, but I'm gonna take a quick little break here in just one little second and reminder our members to go ahead and click that like button, click that share button, click that subscribe button. As I always say, just click all the buttons and it be great. But okay. Now back to Kevan. Yep. So, um, so now that it's been. More than 10 years. You've watched us grow from teeny tiny little clubhouse.
That was open one day a week to now five days a week and another clubhouse in the same city. Or same state. Do you think, do you feel like what y'all set out to do? Has been achieved. I mean, do you think the vision has been realized?
That's a hard question to answer because I think. I mean, the vision is amazing. So, no, I mean, it's doing what it was supposed to do. But it's gone beyond in some really exciting ways. I mean, in the idea of opening the Fort worth club house and getting things going there is, is, is branching into entirely new. You know, vision and ideas. So I would say you're, you'll never meet the entire vision. There's too much that can be accomplished.
And. When you have all these wonderful minds coming together and everyone's going well, this is what I'm good at. And this is what I'm interested in. There's always opportunity for things to expand and change. Which I would never want it to ever get stagnet but it sure is a lot bigger. And. bolder and amazing. Than it was, you know, in the first. years that I was working with it.
Okay. How long were you on the board
of. Um, five years. Okay. Then they kicked me off.
They didn't kick you off for your term. Expires. Um, but you know, if you're interested in joining the board again, I know some people.
You know, some people.
Well, um, you know, Kevin, one of the things that, you know, As brain injury survivors specifically, um, you know, we struggle with. Obviously a number of different things, right? Um, What do you think? I mean, how can we encourage the public? Um, to be involved with brain injury survivors, from your perspective, especially, you know, given the line that you line of work that you do and, and you being so close to it.
Obviously various types of education I think are really important. But I think when, you know, BIND is involved with activities that reach into the community, like the various walks and outreaches of that nature, um, I think it, it. Puts. I mean. To put it in kind of business terms. It puts the logo out there and people take note of it. Um, I know that in the medical community. What was this tiny little startup, nonprofit little place, you know? Meeting once a week.
And all these kinds of things is a known entity in this community. And, um, that of course has expanded through. I think a lot of hard work. From a lot of really good people, but. In a large part, it was just literally being present. Showing up and doing those, um, talks at the, at the hospitals. Um, Doing the community outreach things that we do. You know, and I noticed staff members at different facilities. Wearing BIND t-shirts. And that type of thing.
So it's a, it's a, it's a known thing now. And I think that, you know, all those things together contributed to getting it out there, getting the word out there. Um, and I think. The public is maybe slowly. I am a little jaded because I only work in this environment. I worked so much in this environment. But I think people are starting to realize that people recovering from. Various brain injury, neurological injury. They're regular people.
You know, It's all a whole lot more normal than you thought it was. And that helps a lot too, because otherwise it's really scary. And I think it's really scary to the public.
Well, and I know that's a lot of what we're trying to do, and I guess trying to figure out better ways to do that just to John Q public. Because brain injury is just so yeah, like you said, you know, people hear brain injury and they're like, well, I mean, you know what, 30 years ago you just got stuck in a nursing home and no one did anything with you that's true. And now, you know, now we're out there. Hey, look at me. I know. I look crazy. Okay. Maybe I'm crazy.
And it's not just because of the brain injury, but I am that normal crazy then. It just happened to have had a brain injury. That's. You know, besides this, you know, what else can we do to reach the general public?
Honestly, keep doing what you're doing, continuing to find those opportunities to be BIND in the community, I think is really a great way for. Those who are not familiar with all of this to become familiar. And, and then those people who, um, unfortunately have to go through. Recovery from these injuries. Can, um, know that there are lots of options. It's not just. You know, get through your acute care hospitalization. Your life is whatever your life is at that point.
Yeah. One of the things that really struck me, struck me as this kind of opportunity to build that bridge and like, and, um, you know, on a personal note, like it's been wonderful to be able to. I kind of see the integration of, you know, cognitive and all of these other kinds of things that, you know, could that, that, that has fallen away. Um, or, or that could have fallen away, but in fact coming back. Yep. And that's the coolest thing about
it. It really is. And, and I love that some environment like this can be. Um, anything from doing you. Like a really simple class or, you know, exercise. Group or an art activity or something like that. All the way up to as far as you want to take it. And when, uh, when we were in Virginia, There was one clubhouse. I think it actually was in, uh, Georgia. But one of the members was, um, a, um, Word finding problems. Um, yeah. She advocated for brain injury. Um, a legislature in Congress.
Wow. Um, so that, that was something that they included in there. Community outreach portion of their program because she had a special skill. And so she. Yeah. If you can do that, you can do pretty much anything with this. That's amazing to me.
Right. That's awesome.
Well, are there any, maybe last tips? Not tips, just encouragement that you would give to any new brain injury survivors that possibly we have out there listening.
Yeah, I think. It's hard to feel that it gets better when you're. Really in the thick of it. But. Take a look at BIND, take a look at the members who are here. Every single person. Had that similar experience or something. Close to it. And you can see. It gets better. And it continues to get better.
Absolutely. I agree with that. A hundred percent. But Kevan, thank you so much for joining us today. Um, and for all. And thank you to all of you for listening. So. We're probably going to have some more with Kevan here in the near future. Very, very near future.
Um, yeah. Thanks for Kevan. Thanks Kevan for joining us and thanks for everybody. Um, for listening, if you'd like to contact us. Um, you can email us bindwaves@thebind.org. Or follow us on Instagram at bindwaves. Uh, and visit our website, thebind.org/bindwaves.
And again, don't forget. To like, share, subscribe, and all your favorite platforms. And also hit notify on YouTube while listening. So as Kezia, he always says he can see our pretty faces. Um, just again, click all the buttons and all the lights and please share. If you have brain injury friends out there that maybe are struggling, we would love for you to get them. Involved in listening and maybe coming out to see us.
Yeah, we, we we'd love that. And we're available, you know, we're we drop our podcast, drops every Thursday. So you can find all new episodes. Um, on all of your favorite platforms. So until next time.
Until next time. We hope you've enjoyed listening to BIND Waves and continue to support BIND and our non profit mission.
We support brain injury survivors as they reconnect into the life, the community, and their workplace.
And we couldn't do that without great listeners like you. We appreciate each and every one of you. Continue watching. Until next time.
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