#155 - Design Tips for an SCI-Accessible Home with Kathy Kirchner
A home is a place where we grow, where we rest, where we spend a significant amount of our time. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the most basic physiological necessities like shelter, rest, and water are all part of what a home provides – but also some of the more psychological needs like belonging and esteem. What happens when illness or disability change the way we fulfill those needs? What if our home no longer serves us in basic or c...
#155 - Design Tips for an SCI-Accessible Home with Kathy Kirchner
A home is a place where we grow, where we rest, where we spend a significant amount of our time. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the most basic physiological necessities like shelter, rest, and water are all part of what a home provides – but also some of the more psychological needs like belonging and esteem. What happens when illness or disability change the way we fulfill those needs? What if our home no longer serves us in basic or complex ways? The process of changing a home in the wake of a catastrophic event like an SCI is highly layered, and requires team members versed in both home construction and therapeutic knowledge related to disability. Kathy Kirchner is someone who holds that knowledge, and in this episode we get some crucial advice from her on how to approach a home renovation for SCI or other disability, illness, or injury. Whether or not that is your current concern, join us to gain perspective on what it really means for a home to be accessible to all who live there.
Kathy Kirchner is the owner of Accessible Home Solutions, a consulting company that helps individuals and families through the process of reworking their homes to be more accessible. Kathy’s clients include people transitioning from hospitals or care facilities and returning home with a new disability, couples who want to age-in-place and account for long-term health considerations, and adult children who want to ensure their parents live in a safe home environment. She also works with the Center for Innovative Care in Aging at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, the D.C. Office on Aging's Safe at Home program, and Habitat for Humanity of Metro Maryland’s CAPABLE (Community Aging in Place Advancing Better Living for Elders) program.
If you are seeking a designer who can help with an accessible home modification project, you can find a national list of individuals certified by the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology Home Modification Program at this link.
Blink of an Eye is created by Louise Phipps Senft and co-produced by Louise Phipps Senft and Zera Bloom. Theme music is by Victoria Vox.
Blink of an Eye Podcast is sponsored by the Blink of an Eye Non Profit: a non-profit created as a national resource to help change the Spinal Cord Injury experience for families and medical teams across the U.S. Blink of an Eye provides a national team of SCI specialized doctors for expert opinions in the Golden Hours of SCI injury, a Multidisciplinary Family Support & Navigation Team for SCI families lead by SCI families for the first 30 days of crisis, and a National Resource Library of essential SCI information and trauma informed responses for the first hours and days after injury specialized for families, friends and SCI medical staff. Blink of an Eye also offers a Registry of Medically Unexpected SCI Recoveries. To find out more, visit www.blinkofaneye.org, and make a contribution to the Launch Campaign at www.givebutter.com/blinkofaneye
To find out more about Louise and this podcast, visit the websites www.blinkofaneyepodcast.com and www.BeingRelational.com.
To find out more about learning relational mediation skills for navigating hospital and medical conflict and trauma, visit the website www.BaltimoreMediation.com.
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To find out more about Archer and to see some of Archer’s artwork, check out www.slimeyard.com.
#hopeforeverything #obtaineverything #lovehealstrauma #beginagain
Music in this episode is:
Dream Guitar by Frank Schroeter
https://filmmusic.io/song/7759-dream-guitar
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Calm Meditation by MusicLFiles
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/7456-calm-meditation
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
