SITKA, ALASKA
The conference was coordinated by Gayle Young, who assists the FASD diagnostic team at SEARHC.

Here are some of their experiences and thoughts on recognizing, and living with, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.

Music: Savannah’s Song, by Morgan Fawcett.

Morgan: “Everybody who has an FASD is very unique. Where my strengths lie might be very different for someone else. So knowing what is needed, listening to what people say when they have these special needs, is very important. As articulate as I am you’d be shocked to know that I have an overall IQ of seventy-three. Three points above being legally mentally retarded. And because of my physical disabilities, I cannot work a full work day. As you’ve noticed, I have tremors. On a bad day I can’t feed myself.”

Deb: “Morgan is a real hero for our times. And FASD is such an amazing challenge. This community is terrific. It has a history of strength and courage. Dealing with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders right outright brings hope, and will create a better future for us all.”

Morgan: “I spent most of my life not knowing what was wrong with me. I wasn’t diagnosed until fifteen. Fifteen years of not knowing why I could not do simple math, why I could not keep up in school. What people don’t know is that children only see the world through their own eyes. They don’t have the ability to know or comprehend that everybody is different, no matter how much we tell them. I spent most of my life thinking I was just like everybody else — that I had the same tools. And because I was failing, I felt stupid.”

Gayle: “The important thing for me to say to people is that this is a brain disability. It’s like someone rolling into the room in a wheelchair, or finding someone bumping into furniture and learning that they’re blind. This is something that we can’t just say to someone ‘Shape up!’ We need to make the accommodations. When we realizing someone’s not tracking as we expect, we need to slow down, back up, and support that person.”

Morgan Fawcett founded One Heart Creations, a non-profit organization to raise awareness about FASD. He told the Sitka Chamber of Commerce that his mother drank 90 to 100 days during pregnancy.

Despite Alaska’s high rate of diagnosis, Deb Evensen says that, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, non-Native college-educated single-mothers now run the highest risk for FASD.
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