Community for adolescents with brain injuries

UngtLiv (Young Life) is a project designed to support adolescents with acquired brain injury (ABI) by creating a strong community through a variety of activities. This initiative is intended to help the young people build up and maintain networks, and to support each other in a peer-to-peer setting.

“The grant from the Vissing Foundation makes a positive difference for the young people who take part in UngtLiv. The community is open to young people during rehabilitation at the Brain Injury Center Virum, or who have completed rehabilitation within the last three years. The project offers a range of social activities, both at the Brain Injury Center in Virum and elsewhere. The young people can take part in activities such as cooking meals, board games, bowling, climbing or kayaking,” explains Marianne Riis Jensen, a neural special needs teacher and educational consultant at the Brain Injury Center Virum.

The Brain Injury Center Virum has carried out an assessment of what the young people say events at UngtLiv have meant for them. One of them said:
“It really means a lot to me. My friends with normal health can’t understand how I feel. But the other young people at UngtLiv can.”

The project gives the young people a chance to meet others in the same situation, with the support of professionals who specialise in rehabilitation of children and young people. The aim is that the young people will be able to transfer positive experiences from activities here to their everyday lives, and build up new self confidence in spite of the changed conditions in which they live.

The project also aims to help the young people develop their social competence, prevent loneliness and make them more robust, in the hope that the transition from the secure environment of rehabilitation to the local young community will be less difficult. Through continual evaluation and sharing of knowledge, the intention is that in the longer term the project will become a permanent scheme.