Missouri AgrAbility focused its social media efforts on continuing its MO AgrAbility team campaign, Grain Bin Safety Week, American Heart Month, and promotion of MU Extension and partner programs. Please make sure to like and follow Missouri AgrAbility, @MOAgrAbility, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
MU Extension and its Brain Injury Association of Missouri (BIA-MO) collaborative partner and brain injury stakeholders developed the Brain Injury Awareness Month Promotional Toolkit and shared it with cooperative organizations and stakeholders. Missouri's Brain Injury Awareness Toolkit is a handy resource that can be used to help farmers, ranchers, individuals, and families with traumatic brain injury who live and work in rural and urban communities. The Brain Injury Awareness Month Promotional Toolkit is found HERE.
Missouri AgrAbility staff continue to provide fee-for-service direct onsite farmstead assessments for Missouri's Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and Rehabilitation Services for the Blind. The primary objectives continue to focus on the early identification of farm and rural families, including veterans with disabilities, who are in need of AgrAbility services related to disability and to provide individualized on-the-farm consultative services that increase the likelihood that AgrAbility customers and their farm operations experience success.
Submitted by Tevin Uthlaut and Karen Funkenbusch
Missouri AgrAbility offered its third education-based program to agricultural professionals and collaborative partners with a focus on mental health and farmers with disabilities. The first of three education-based mental health series took place in-person at Lincoln University's Carver Research Farm in Jefferson City, Missouri, with the focus on "Weathering the Storm." The second training provided was "QPR Gatekeeper," and lastly, a more in-depth mental health training for Lincoln University Cooperative Extension (LUCE) ISFOP and collaborative staff members was "Mental Health First Aid." The last two training workshops were delivered via ZOOM and attended by all four regions of Missouri covered by Lincoln University's Innovative Small Farmers Outreach Program (ISFOP). The purpose of the mental health training workshops was to offer LUCE ISFOP staff and collaborating partners more mental health resources for their toolbox to better connect and serve AgrAbility customers throughout the state of Missouri. Additionally, this AgrAbility mental health network will allow LUCE to provide ongoing support for AgrAbility customers, farm families, and stakeholders throughout the state of Missouri.
Submitted by Shon Bishop