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Higher Ground
Program Overview
(May 2009)Helping severely injured service members (wounded warriors)
In collaboration with military medical centers, military agencies, and service organizations around the country, Higher Groundis a program designedto use sports and recreation as a means of therapy, healing, and rehabilitation for men and women of the armed forces who have been severely wounded in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terror.The goal is to build physical skills and confidence as well as to provide a fun, healthy and meaningful experience so warriors can more easily transition into their home communities, or back into military service.
We inspire hope and encourage warriors and their significant others to take the skills learned in Sun Valley and apply them to their daily lives. The results are astounding: Warriors return home with a restored sense of independence, a renewed athletic spirit, a desire to improve work and school performance, an eagerness to improve family relationships, an increased ability to cope with combat related stress, and a new set of friends.
To ensure their experience and new outlook on life is sustainable, we help connect warriors to sports and recreation organizations in their hometowns once they return. We also help connect them with work, school, and community resources. Our therapists make regular follow-up calls, conduct assessments, and provide on-going support and encouragement.
Program Structure
To provide the most meaningful, safe, enjoyable, and therapeutic experience possible, Higher Ground centers on “needs based” programming. Our therapists talk with warriors before they visit Sun Valley. We ask them about
their goals and objectives. We ask them about their dreams and aspirations. We discover what activities they want to learn.
Then, after a detailed assessment of their injuries, medications, and current therapy, we engage the resources of SVAS, volunteers, businesses, professionals, and the community to make their dreams come true—no matter what it takes!
Camps last five to six days and include six or seven couples. We also invite one couple from the previous years’ camp to return as mentors. Camps are 100 percent free for both the warrior and their significant other. We’re proud to pay the cost for significant others to attend because we believe they undergo just as much—if not more—trauma during recovery as the warriors.
Higher Ground
H e a l i n g A m e r i c a ’ s w o u n d e d
v e t e r a n s t h r o u g h s p o r t s
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SVAS offers instruction in more than a dozen sports. We occasionally offer arts and crafts activities. Our goal is to reacquaint warriors with sports and activities they once loved before their injury, or to introduce them to new activities.
Some of the more popular activities include alpine skiing, snowboarding, Nordic skiing, sled hockey, snowshoeing, ice skating, fly-fishing, water skiing, wakeboarding, kayaking, whitewater rafting, horseback riding, mountain biking, skeet shooting, and paragliding.
Our small group setting creates a comfortable, friendly atmosphere to facilitate conversation and peer-to-peer bonding. Warriors open up and share their struggles and frustrations while significant others share challenges about health care, parenting, and their new roles as caregivers. Mentors play a key role at the camps. They provide a level of guidance, empathy and inspiration that can only be derived from a warrior and significant other who have learned to adapt and adjust.
An event begins by contacting wounded warriors. In some cases, warriors learn about Higher Ground through our relationship with major military medical centers such as Bethesda, Walter Reed, or Brooke Army Medical. Warriors may also learn about SVAS at a Veterans’ Administration hospital, the Department of Defense State Liaison Office, veterans service organizations, or Disabled Sports USA. In some instances, it is a case manager, liaison officer, physical therapist, occupational therapist, or one of a dozen organizations or agencies with whom we have a partnership.
Program Types
Dreams Come True. We find some warriors prefer privacy during rehabilitation. In this case, warriors visit Sun Valley alone, or with a spouse or family member.
The focus of the visit centers on one-on-one instruction and customized training to help the warriors achieve specific goals and dreams as it relates to sports and recreation.
Group Events. This includes small groups of six to seven warriors (plus significant others) who have served in the same military unit (Special Forces team), share a common injury (blindness), or have a common sport or recreation interest (skiing).
Gatherings include snowsports camps, watersports camps, fly fishing camps, adventure camps, and rafting trips. All our camps and trips include one-on-one instruction to help warriors achieve specific goals.
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About Sun Valley Adaptive Sports
Founded in 1999, SVAS is a nationally recognized leader in adaptive sports. With professionally trained staff and experienced management, we apply the latest therapeutic recreation techniques, best practice operating structures, and cutting edge vision to create innovative, sustainable therapy for people of all ages with disabilities. For wounded warriors, SVAS specializes in serving those with traumatic brain injuries, blindness, visual impairment, spinal cord injuries, amputations and severe burns.
SVAS freely shares all it learns about adaptive sports therapy with research universities, adaptive sports organizations, and government agencies to help the returning wounded, and to improve the quality of the entire adaptive industry and those served by it.
Working in Cooperation with Premier Organizations
In an effort to provide the best programs and services available to wounded warriors, SVAS is working with a number of premier organizations. We are a chapter of Disabled Sports USA/Wounded Warrior Project. We also work with the Department of Defense, Veterans Administration, Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, Amputee Coalition of America, Blinded Veterans Association, Military One Source, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Transportation Security Administration, and dozens of other private, government, and military organizations working to heal, rehabilitate, and reintegrate wounded warriors.
Costs and Logistics
Every Higher Ground event is 100% free to qualified OEF/OIF wounded warriors. This includes all expenses related to airfare, lodging, meals, ground transportation, equipment rental, instruction, event fees, entertainment fees, and other program related costs. The average stay for an event ranges from five to six days. SVAS coordinates all logistics. Currently, the program is funded solely by individuals and foundations. Because the program is free, it provides warriors—and their significant others—an opportunity to have a therapeutic experience using sports and recreation they might not otherwise be able to afford.
Testimonials
“This is the most therapeutic and fun event I’ve attended! SVAS is setting the standard for helping wounded warriors heal.”
– Ivan Castro, Special Forces (blind)
“I have never felt so appreciated – ever! The whole week was mind-blowing!”
– Sergeant Major Colin Rich, Special Forces (traumatic brain injury/blind)
“Amazing! It inspired me to try sports I never thought I’d be able to do again!”
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“For me to watch my son do things I never knew were possible was a dream come true. This wonderful program enables people to grow in positive direction – both physically and mentally.”
– Carrie Moore, mother of Eric Jordan, Army (paraplegic)
“It was the best rehabilitative experience ever! . . . SVAS epitomizes the saying, ‘No warrior left behind.’”
– Thomas Green, Army (paraplegic)
“The work SVAS is doing for the disabled community is amazing!”
– Erik Weinhenmayer, blind mountaineer (Everest Summit, 2001)
“There are experiences in life that completely transform a person’s life . . . this was one of those experiences.”
– Sergeant Joe Danes, Marine (back fractures, internal injuries)
“Higher Ground showed me that I no longer had to hide from winter months. I now have the confidence to go out during the cold wet winter days and have a blast!”
– Sergeant Luke Wilson, Army (leg amputee)
“The experience made me realize I want a future in the type of work people at Higher Ground are doing.”
– Keith Deutsch, Marines (leg amputee)
“This was a one-of-a-kind experience for the wives! It gave us a chance to share our feelings and struggles as we learn to cope.”
– Mary Paiser, wife of Chris Paiser, Army National Guard (blind)
“The format of this event was like no other! I had no idea it would have such a profound effect . . . I’ll be a better husband and father because of it.”
– John Crabtree, Navy (blind)
“The event showed me I wasn’t broken. It gave me the chance to feel like a
soldier again. I can’t wait to go home and show my son I can snowboard with him.”
– Chris Paiser, Army (blind)
“One of the greatest displays of appreciation for wounded warriors I have ever seen.”
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F
ACT
S
HEET
Higher Ground offers more weeklong, small group therapeutic sport camps for wounded veterans than any other
adaptive sports organization in the nation. We serve veterans who were severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Injury specialties: traumatic brain injuries (TBI), blindness, visual impairment, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as amputations, spinal cord injuries, burns, and hearing impairment.
Serve 100 wounded veterans and their spouses a year. Over the next two years, Higher Ground will hold 16
weeklong therapeutic sport camps, plus a handful of camps offering customized instruction for veterans with extreme disabilities. Higher Ground began serving wounded veterans in 2004. Sun Valley Adaptive Sports was founded in 1999.
One of the industry’s early leaders to include spouses at sports camps. A veteran’s injury can be a traumatic
experience for a spouse. We find spouses benefit from our therapeutic camps as much or more than the wounded veterans.
Pay 100 percent of the camp expenses for a warrior and spouse. Higher Ground even pays for childcare back in
the veteran’s hometown while the couple attends camp. Many camps do not pay for spouses or childcare.
Have the industry’s longest follow-up care plan. Higher Ground provides a three-year follow-up care plan for every
warrior and spouse attending a camp. We have a comprehensive strategy to connect veterans to recreational activities in their hometowns. We even budget funds to buy veterans specialized sports equipment.
Nationally recognized as the“gold standard” adaptive sports organization by the Pentagon, military hospitals, VA
hospitals, military care units, veterans service programs, and wounded veterans. Higher Ground camps are not “assisted vacations.” Rather, its camps center on “therapy” with an emphasis on impact and sustainability.
Work with Brigham Young University and San Jose State University to conduct research—through Higher Ground
programming—to measure the efficacy of sports and recreation on long-term veteran care as it relates to
confidence, relationships, stress, fitness, independence, and community involvement. We will share the results and best practices documents with military centers, universities, and organizations working to improve the industries serving veterans.
Offered free consulting services to more than a dozen organizations last year to help launch new programs or
improve existing programming to advance the quality of adaptive sports services provided to wounded veterans.
Over the last five years, Higher Ground programming and fundraising is up ten-fold. Fiscal year fundraising goal
for Sun Valley Adaptive Sports: $1.75 million. Budget: $950,000. The percentage of funding that goes to programs: 88%. SVAS complies with the Better Business Bureau’s best practices standards for charities.
Higher Ground is theindustry leader in media outreach to show the benefits of sports therapy that transforms
wounded veterans into healing heroes. We also create awareness for some of the poignant issues facing wounded veterans: relationships, isolation, long-term recovery, community reintegration, combat-related stress, and the vast number of those with traumatic brain injuries (350,000). We have produced dozens of powerful videos and articles with well known media giants such as the Annenberg Foundation, CNN, Nightline, Newsweek,
Associated Press, National Public Radio, American Legion Magazine, the editor of Warren Miller films, and many others.
Beginning to work with legislators to secure a $1.0 billion appropriation for sports therapy and fitness as part of