The Munroe-Meyer Guild has announced its 2016 grants to the Munroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation (MMI) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The grant of $80,397 is the largest amount in the guild’s 48-year history.
The goal of the Munroe-Meyer Guild is to improve the quality of life for persons with disabilities through fundraising for MMI. Over more than 40 years, the major fundraiser for the Munroe-Meyer Guild has been the annual Garden Walk held in June.
Recipients at MMI include:
•Speech Language Pathology Department for “Expanding Functional Augmentative and Alternative Communication.” The proposal will increase opportunities for children who use AAC to communicate in meaningful activities across all environments, increase training and provide opportunities for parents to communicate using AAC with their children. It will provide coaching from MMI staff for parents, recreation therapy technicians, and speech language pathology graduate students on creating communication opportunities and modeling during naturally occurring activities.
•University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities — for “Family Care Enhancement Project Family Support Groups.” This grant will initiate a support group to serve families of children with special health care needs and/or disabilities.
•University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities — for “Seizure Log Android App Project.” The project will foster an effective method of organization for seizure tracking, seizure type documentation, video recording, medication administration, seizure trigger documentation, rescue medication administration and recording vagus nerve stimulation usage. By recording this information, effective epilepsy treatment can be determined.
•University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities — for “Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Training – Developmental Disability Program.” The program will pay for stipends for parents to be on a panel to train police officers for certification for CIT. Training will cover both mental illness and emotional disorder occurring at the same time as an intellectual disability.
•Occupational Therapy Department — for “Hand-Arm Bimanual Intensive Therapy Summer Day Camp.” The goal of this intensive intervention experience for children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy is to improve their ability to use their more affected arm and hand more spontaneously and effectively in all activities of daily living, increasing independent dressing, grooming, food/utensil management and tool use.
•Center for Pediatric Feeding Disorders — for “Development of a Clinic Designed to Treat Food Selectivity in Children with ASD.” The grant-funded clinic will be used to treat children with both autism spectrum disorder and feeding disorders by purchasing equipment, developing a website and hiring and training a new staff person.
•Physical Therapy Department — for “Go Baby Go! A Nebraska Partnership Optimizing Early Mobility.” This project will build capacity for a community partnership in order to expand access to low-cost options for infants and toddlers with movement disorders or developmental delays.
MMI provides statewide services and supports to children and adults with developmental disabilities, genetic disorders and special health care needs. As Nebraska’s federally designated University Center of Excellence for Developmental Disabilities Education, Research and Service, the institute assists individuals and families in finding services in their local communities.
We are Nebraska Medicine and UNMC. Our mission is to lead the world in transforming lives to create a healthy future for all individuals and communities through premier educational programs, innovative research and extraordinary patient care.
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