Partners work to bring Stroke Support Group back together

Published 12:05 am Thursday, January 30, 2025

Karen Kistler

karen.kistler@salisburypost.com

 

SALISBURY — Having suffered a stroke three years ago and recognizing the need in the community for a stroke support group, Stu Stepp decided to do something. With the partnership of others in the community, the Rowan Stroke Support Group will once again be offered to those who need help.

Novant had a group years ago, said Lori Goodnight, an occupational therapist with Novant Stanback Rehab. However, the group “fizzled out with COVID, so we’re getting it back,” she said.

The partnership of RCCC, the YMCA and Novant is going to be key, Goodnight said, “us all working together to keep this going and having people that are stroke survivors helping to lead.”

Novant has wanted to get this going again, she said, “but I think Stu really inspired us and really got the ball rolling.”

Stepp said he reached out to Goodnight and said that he was going to do something and also contacted Richard Reinholz, who is in charge of the J.F. Hurley Family YMCA on Jake Alexander Boulevard in Salisbury, to inquire about a meeting place, which was agreed upon.

The group is now ready for its first meeting, which will be held Feb. 3 from 7-8 p.m. and will continue meeting the first Monday of each month at the YMCA, with Stepp serving as the facilitator.

Others volunteering with the group will be the therapy program students from Rowan-Cabarrus Community College.

Wendy Barnhardt, who serves as the college’s dean of health education and cosmetology programs, said the students in the occupational and physical therapy assistant programs, along with the nursing students, would be helping with the group. Barnhardt is also a stroke survivor herself.

Barnhardt said they like to work together with the community and they require students to do five hours of service to the community every semester.

“So this is a great way for them to get involved,” said Barnhardt.

With Novant, YMCA and RCCC partnering, along with others who are stroke survivors, Goodnight said, “I feel like we’ll have a mix of all different people, but I feel like it will be a good program.”

The mission of the support group is to provide education, encouragement, hope and understanding for stroke survivors, their families and caregivers.

Stepp said if the survivors are unable to attend the meetings, noting that some may be sleeping by that time of night or are just too tired and can’t make it, their support team is welcome to come.

Those attending do not have to register, the group meetings are free and participants do not have to be members of the YMCA.

When a stroke support group was meeting years ago, Goodnight said they would break out into different groups, one for the stroke survivors and another for the caregivers, which she said was helpful.

During this first meeting, she said those who attend would be deciding together what they want the group to look like, plus plan some ideas of topics.

“We already have some speaker ideas lined up,” said Goodnight, “but we’re going to take a poll of what the people in the group want to make out of it.”

As people arrive, there will be a sign-in where organizers can get contact information so that monthly reminders can be sent out along with the topic of each meeting, she said.

While Barnhardt and Stepp spoke about their respective leadership roles in the group, they also shared what it means to have this group from the stroke survivor perspective.

“I feel like it is a way for me to get involved in the community with other stroke survivors and to help give back especially to new stroke survivors and to offer a way to support these people,” said Barnhardt.  

Many who have suffered a stroke don’t know what to do or where to go and being able to offer support “is the biggest benefit to me,” she said.

She said that she and Stepp had different kinds of strokes but have faced similar issues and being able to talk with one another and compare their stories has encouraged her.

Stepp, 46, said he experienced shower strokes, which were “very life altering.”

A former teacher, he is disabled and lost his ability to work he said, noting that it took him approximately two years to become as independent as he is now.

So for Stepp, he said, the group is “a way for me to turn around and give back to survivors because three years ago when I had my strokes, there was not a support group. It’s taken a little over three years for this to actually happen.”

Stepp has already been helping others who have suffered strokes as he said Goodnight asked him to come and talk to patients at the Stanback Rehab facility, which he started doing approximately a year and a half ago.

Therefore, this group will take this “a step further, to give even more,” he said, “because there’s a great need in our community for a support group because it doesn’t exist and there’s a lot who just don’t know what to do next and I’ve pretty much been through it all.”

Being a teacher, Goodnight said that Stepp has lots of skills in motivating others and he will be using those skills as a leader and teacher in the support group.

“Not only does he share his story, but he empathizes with them and can relate and he helps encourage them,” she said.

She related having a stroke to going through the grieving process, noting that it’s a loss of function, they are not at home and with family and they can not do what they were able to at one time.

“We have to motivate them to continue to work hard to get that return, and he is so helpful, especially with patients that are kind of really getting down. He really helps bring them around and relates to them,” she said.

“I think it’s going to be good with all the different aspects of the support group,” said Goodnight which will include speakers, educational information and “getting together and talking, which is also therapeutic,”

Dan Burks, manager of the Stanback Rehab services, thanked each one for their part in the group, as he said that this “is a wonderful resource for the members of our community.”

Serving the community, which is a mission at Stanback Rehab facility, is also a goal of this group, that of providing care and service to the citizens of the community, he said.

“And this is a very, very important piece that we’ve been trying to do for many, many years as a stroke certified facility,” Burks said, “and now also we’re working it into our inpatient rehab facility to try to get this thing hardwired.”

As for the group and the RCCC students, Barnhardt said she thought it was coming full circle as it will help in the students’ education to work with stroke survivors, plus “help to educate our students into what it means to be a stroke survivor and that all stroke survivors are different.”

Stepp said one thing he has been good at is bringing people together and from 2012 to 2022, those who were runners in the county knew who he was because he brought runners together.

“So now I’m turning that around,” he said. “I’m trying to bring all stroke survivors together and make sure that we have each other.”