Free Brain Injury Caregiver Support — Maine | All Things Become New
All Things Become New, Inc. partners with the Brain Injury Association of America’s Maine chapter to run free peer support for the people caring for a brain injury survivor. Caregivers of someone with a traumatic or acquired brain injury occupy a strange position — they are managing an enormous amount of medical, behavioral, and emotional labor while being nobody’s patient, which means their own needs are almost never on anyone’s chart.
What to Expect
The statewide Brain Injury Caregiver Support Group meets virtually on the third Wednesday of each month from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. All Things Become New also hosts an in-person Northern Maine brain injury support group at Governor’s Restaurant, 350 Main Street in Presque Isle, on the second Thursday of each month from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. The virtual caregiver group is co-facilitated by Suzanne Morneault of All Things Become New and Sarah Gaffney of BIAA-Maine. Conversations cover what caregiving actually involves day to day: personality and behavior changes after injury, navigating the Maine Brain Injury Waiver and other services, managing exhaustion, and holding onto a relationship that has changed shape.
Who This Group Is For
Family members, spouses, partners, adult children, and other unpaid caregivers supporting someone with a traumatic brain injury, stroke, anoxic injury, or other acquired brain injury anywhere in Maine. The Presque Isle group welcomes survivors as well as their supporters. No diagnosis documentation or referral is required — reach out to the facilitator ahead of time to confirm which meeting fits your situation.
Why Peer Support Works
Brain injury caregiving carries a particular grief that is hard to explain to people outside it: the person is still here, and also not entirely the person they were. Friends often don’t know what to say, and the caregiver learns to stop bringing it up. In a group of caregivers, that ambiguity needs no preface. Members also pass along hard-won navigational knowledge about Maine’s specific systems — waiver applications, NeuroResource Facilitation, the state’s Brain Injury ID card — that takes families years to piece together alone. And there is real value in hearing from someone five years further along that the current stage is not permanent.
How to Join
Both groups are free. Contact Suzanne Morneault at suzanne@allthingsbecomenew.org, (207) 444-9070, or (207) 540-5446 for the Northern Maine in-person group. For the virtual statewide caregiver group you may also contact Sarah Gaffney at sgaffney@biausa.org or (207) 522-6601. Facilitators ask that you reach out before your first meeting to confirm details. More at allthingsbecomenew.org.