Return to Work after TBI: For a Survivor of a Brain Injury

Return to Work After TBI: Michael Part Twenty-Two

Michael talks about his return to work after TBI  and the problems he had with his employment at a group home and his problems in the community.

I wanted to talk to you specifically about your return to work after TBI.  You spent a lot of effort  to get a college degree. 

Yes.

You did well in college; your grades were considerably better than they were the first time you went to college, before you got hurt. 

Yes.

Well over a B average when you went back the  second time. 

UWO yeah I was over a 3.3.

What was your degree in? 

Human services, I have a problem (in the) community.

Is that social work? 

No, it’s how to, it’s like, I guess you can compare it with being CNA, which is this, which is just below an LPN.  They’re the ones that handle all the grunt work.  That’s basically what, we’re not.  If we want to become a social worker we just have to take a, I think it’s a political science class and we can get certified.

When you graduated in 1998, did you have any success in your return to work after TBI?  

I worked. I was working at United Cerebral Palsy in Oshkosh, and then I got a full-time job with a group home, but I had problems.

When you return to work after TBI you said you were working for United Cerebral Palsy, and that was while you were still a student? 

That was a great place to work.

What did you do for them? 

Well I was a weekend leader.  A weekend leader is the person who hands out meds, does all the big paperwork, plans ideas for the weekend.  And then I was a grunt worker.  I would just show up and work a weekend, have fun with the kids, and then one summer I was camp director.

Then after you graduated you return to work after TBI for? 

I don’t know the name of the company.  It was a group home up in Oshkosh, but like I said, I had problems.

What were you doing at the group home? 

I was basically just watching the guys.  If they needed to go out I would take them out, but these were – How the guy explained it to me when he offered me the job, or I went for the interview: These are beyond your normal care group for a group home.  Most of these were at the stage of being sent to an institution.  But before they would send them, this is where they would go.

And your title there would’ve been nursing assistant or? 

Um, Mike.

Did you have to have a, a license of any kind to work there? 

Yes. If I would’ve stayed there for a year I would’ve been promoted to running a group home.

Next in Part Twenty Three – Mood – Medication Interfered with Work

By Attorney Gordon Johnson

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