I wanted you to know that Kaiser Permanente is the official health sponsor of this year’s USA Special Olympics being held in Seattle July 1-6. We are in need of over 12000 volunteers – both medical and non-medical. This is a great opportunity for social work students to get involved in the community and have experience working with athletes who have intellectual disabilities. I would like to personally ask if you can share this opportunity with the MSW students.
Often Special Olympic competitors don’t have the time or resources to seek proper health care. The Healthy Athletes program allows participants to receive much needed health screenings and treatment during the duration of the USA Games. These free services are critical to athletes during the competition and positively impact participants long after the Games are over. Medical volunteers can make a huge difference by lending their expertise in one of these seven areas:
Special Olympics Healthy Athletes®
Fit Feet
FUNFitness
Health Promotion
Healthy Hearing
Opening Eyes®
Special Smiles®
Strong Minds
I’m promoting the Strong Minds program to the social work community, we need social workers to help teach athletes healthy coping skills for stress. I’ve attached a pdf with some information on Strong Minds program. Please feel free to email me questions about it. Feel free to sign up family and friends, this is a memorable event and a volunteer position for everyone!
Here is the link to the Special Olympics volunteer site.
https://www.specialolympicsusagames.org/volunteer/
