Free Brain & Spinal Cord Injury Peer Circle — Online | BIALA
The Brain Injury Association of Louisiana, which also serves as the United Spinal Association of Louisiana chapter, is the only statewide resource center for people affected by traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury. Its Connections Circle program — Connections Immersed in Real Community Life Experiences — is a free online peer support group created to link survivors across a state where in-person groups are scattered and, in much of Louisiana, nonexistent.
What to Expect
Connections Circle meets on the first and third Wednesday of each month from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. Central Time on Zoom. The hour blends support, socialization, and education for survivors of brain and spinal cord injuries and their caregivers. Conversation ranges from the practical — navigating benefits, adapting a home, fatigue management — to the parts that are harder to say to family, like grieving the person you were before the injury. A separate Virtual Caregiver Support Group meets quarterly on Zoom from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. for people caring for someone living with a brain or spinal cord injury. BIALA also runs a statewide helpline and an online resource guide, and partners with the New Orleans-based BISCIS League for adaptive baseball and bowling.
Who This Group Is For
Adults anywhere in Louisiana living with a traumatic brain injury, acquired brain injury, or spinal cord injury, at any point post-injury, and the family members and caregivers supporting them. Because it meets on Zoom, the group is accessible to people for whom driving is difficult or impossible, and to survivors in rural parishes with no local group. Attendance is free.
Why Peer Support Works
Brain and spinal cord injuries produce a particular kind of loneliness. The medical system is intensely present for months and then largely recedes, leaving people to rebuild daily life with symptoms that are often invisible to everyone else — cognitive fatigue, processing delays, chronic pain, altered personality. Family members frequently do not know what to ask. Peers do. They also carry accumulated practical knowledge that no discharge packet contains: which adaptations are worth the money, how to talk to an employer, what the second year actually looks like. For caregivers, a separate group matters because their own exhaustion tends to go unspoken in front of the person they care for.
How to Join
Connections Circle is free and open to Louisiana residents. Register or request the Zoom link through biala.org, or call BIALA’s helpline for connection to the group and to other statewide resources. Caregivers can ask about the quarterly Virtual Caregiver Support Group at the same time.