Our Mission

As parents of a severely brain-injured child, we, Ilse and Francis Montocchio, the founders of the International Jairus Society, have discovered through personal experience with home treatment programs that brain injury is treatable, and that the single most important aspect of life with a brain-injured person in the family is knowing:
  • WHAT TO DO
  • DOING IT
  • SEEING RESULTS – this amounts to HOPE.

We have also discovered that in order to DO something about a brain injury, the best people to do this are the parents, and when this is not possible, the next best person is a close relative. This means that Mum or Dad or Sister or Aunt (sometimes there is only Mum or Dad or Sister alone!) stops or cuts down on working and dedicates his or her time to the home treatment program.

The two treatment programs currently recognised by the International Jairus Society are:

  1. The Intensive Treatment Program at the Institutes for Achievement of Human Potential, Philadelphia, USA.
  2. Advanced Biomechanical Rehabilitation, based in Beringen, Belgium.

Families on the Intensive Treatment Program at the IAHP need to travel to Philadelphia twice a year, and those doing ABR need to travel to Beringen, Canada or Singapore, depending on the proximity of the ABR Centre, up to five times a year. The costs involved include professional fees, airfares, accommodation, board, equipment and helpers who need to travel with the family.

The double load of a reduced family income added to the costs of travelling and treatment programs results in an enormous financial burden on most families.

The International Jairus Society was founded to help support an increasing number of families with brain-injured children and adults who are involved in home treatment programs, and is concerned with two main activities:

  1. Fund-Raising for the purposes of covering the costs of this treatment which are hardly ever covered by mainstream medical insurance policies.
  2. Sharing of information and experiences on home treatment of brain-injured children and adults to interested parties