Its been a long time coming, from the initial idea back in 2012 to the actual official launch on the 19th March 2019 of the therapist online training program on MS Get a Head Start. This is probably one of my proudest moments of my therapy career. It truly is a game changer for those living with MS, due to all the research and evidence behind this program, as well as the results that I have seen first hand. For a population that have lived with little hope for far too long and for therapists often being concerned about making a situation worse, one would say the timing is perfect to flip this all on its head.
As a therapist who loves what they do, I have always been driven by the passion of helping someone live a better life. The potential impact of this program on hundreds and even thousands of people living with MS gets me very excited. Having the ability to extend this knowledge, the research, the hours of creation and training to a much wider reach than I could ever impact alone is truly humbling.
Like with many projects that people work on outside of their full time jobs, it always seems to never quite get finished. From starting the first MS Get a Head Start program in 2013 in Sydney, I have traveled, set up my own clinic and consultancy service, got married, brought a house, raced several significant trail races…..all while continuing to chip away at this project….so to be at a point ready for the world to see is pretty awesome.
However the launch night is only one small step, there is still plenty of work to advocate for the program around the world, bring on funding bodies and public health care systems, continuing to update the program alongside new published research, create an online public MS Get a Head Start program…….and also try to conduct a research project on the impact of the program itself, I am definitely not done.
For those of you who are based in Auckland (NZ) come along to the evening launch, and for everyone else you can jump onto the live stream of the event or watch the recording later on. Details below.
