Christopher Douglas Hidden Angel Foundation

Multi Sensory Environments, Sensory Stimulation

“There are no guarantees in life, except that everyone faces struggles. This is how we learn (and grow). Some face struggles from the moment they are born. They are the most special of all people, requiring the most care and compassion and reminding us that love is the sole purpose of life.”– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
These are our Hidden Angels – teaching all of us life’s most valuable lessons.

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Multi Sensory Environments™

Our Multi Sensory Environment™ brand includes providing training/education, therapy and installation of rooms. Our rooms are a safe, non-threatening, dedicated space designed to promote intellectual activity, heighten awareness, promote brain arousal, and encourage relaxation. They are engineered to bring together multi-sensory equipment to stimulate the sensory pathways of touch, taste, sight, sound, smell, and movement without the need for intellectual reasoning. They produce either a calming effect on individuals prone to frustration or stimulates passive individuals who appear withdrawn. In our rooms, stimulation can be controlled, manipulated, intensified, reduced, presented in isolation or combination, packaged for active or passive interaction, and matched to fit the perceived motivation, interests, leisure, relaxation, and therapeutic and/or educational needs of the user.

Multi sensory enrichment has been observed to relieve stress, anxiety, and pain while also promoting changes in brain arousal and one’s neurochemistry positively affecting an individual’s drive and motivation.

Installation
CDHAF provides installation services of their Multi Sensory Environment™ rooms to eligible organizations across North America. To date The Christopher Douglas Hidden Angel Foundation, has funded and built over 60 Multi Sensory Environments from Miami, Florida to Portland, Oregon and from Bay of Islands, Newfoundland to Calgary, Alberta. The Foundation has to date designed and provided facilities for what is estimated to be over 10,000 individuals.

Our approach is based on well-documented studies of neurological cognition and emotional development. We offer advisory and financial support for the establishment of integrated, publicly accessible facilities and for basic research and education.

Training/Education
Throughout Europe and the United Kingdom, Multi Sensory rooms have been used as an educational tool and leisure activity for individuals with intellectual disabilities. More recently they have become popular in the United States. It is our objective that the Hidden Angel Foundation and its training efforts will provide direction in the future practice and research of Multi Sensory rooms. With the hope that this leads to enhanced quality of life, health, and social well-being for children and adults with intellectual, physical and emotional challenges.

By adapting and modifying the environment we enable the empowerment of children and adults with significant disabilities. Our Multi Sensory Environments™ provide alternative and powerful forms of sensory stimulation for individuals who have previously been isolated in their perceptual disabilities, providing new ways of encouraging learning, motor development, cognitive development, language and social interaction skills.

Therapy
Research has shown that Multi Sensory rooms can improve the health, social well-being and quality of life of persons with severe and profound intellectual disabilities, and of the elderly. In 1997, the Journal of Intellectual Disabilities Research published research showing that time spent in a room full of lights, textures, sounds and smells increases concentration, alertness, calmness, and general awareness of the surrounding world. Individuals also appear happier while in the room, and tend to vocalize more and stay on task. For those with self-injurious or autistic behaviors, the gentle stimulation has a soothing effect and helps relieve agitation and promote relaxation. Additionally, children with perceptual difficulties appear to derive pleasure from the visual, auditory, and tactile experiences.

In addition to heightened sensory perception, the rooms also aid in cognition. Sensory organs have often been referred to as “the window to the brain”. One’s nervous system continues to develop during the first six years of life, and this maturation is dependent upon the successful stimulation of the nervous system via sensory organs. Functional and cognitive development takes place as the nervous system matures. Failure to mature properly results in problems with regard to cognition and function (i.e. trauma, injury, environmental factors, genetics, and medical issues).

In order to take advantage of brain plasticity (the ability to learn new functional skills, re-learn old skills, and compensate for brain injury or neurological inmaturation) to improve or restore function, the brain must be furnished with a source of increased synaptic connections and sensory-motor input. Adequate stimulation and use of motor ability produced in sufficient frequency, intensity, and duration excites the brain, improves its organization, and permits increased functional activity. By working towards a better-organized, stronger and more efficient nervous system, individuals become better able to demonstrate and to access their true potential. For individuals with cognitive impairment, Multi Sensory stimulation is often the only input to improve and increase synaptic connections and neuron-transmission.

The simple pleasures and joys that children experience running, playing and enjoying a sunny day are sometimes not available for children with special needs. Due to limitations, they don’t experience or are unable to interact with their surroundings, limiting their sensory experiences.
Multi-sensory stimulation is as necessary for survival as food and water. Isn’t it our responsibility to help every child feel included and offer them an environment where they can experience simple joys in life?
About CDHAF

Inside a Multi-Sensory Room

PBS Special - The Hidden Angel

Christopher Douglas Hidden Angel Foundation

The Christopher Douglas Hidden Angel Foundation (CDHAF) was created in honor and recognition of Christopher Douglas Fornes and Joyce Baye. CDHAF enriches the lives, health, and social well-being of people with cognitive, emotional, and physical challenges through the use of our Multi Sensory Environments™ (MSE). Our focus is on the design, development, implementation and education of our Multi Sensory Environments™ with the aim to enable productivity, inclusion, independence, and self-determination. Our approach is based on well-documented studies of neurological cognition and emotional development. We offer advisory and financial support for the establishment of integrated, publicly accessible Multi Sensory facilities and for basic research and … Continue Reading

 
  • MCFI – Milwaukee Center of Independence
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
    2012

  • TLC – The Treatment and Learning Center
    Rockville, Maryland USA
    2012

  • M.O.R.G.A.N. Project
    Melbourne Beach, FL USA
    2011

  • Baycrest Hospital
    Toronto ON, Canada
    2011

  • Baycrest Apotex
    Toronto ON, Canada
    2011

  • EGF Polk County DAC
    East Grand Forks, MI USA
    2011

  • Colisano Children’s Hospital
    Syracuse, NY USA
    2011

  • Miami Lakes Therapy Center
    Miami Lakes, Florida
    2010

  • Anne Grady Center
    Holland, OH USA
    2009

  • A Society for Treatment of Autism
    Calgary, AB Canada
    2008

  • Southeastern Elementary School
    Rome, GA USA
    2008

  • Portage Collegiate Institute
    Portage La Prairie, MB Canada
    2009

  • Centre de Readaptation
    Montreal, QB Canada
    2009

  • West Montreal
    Centre de Readaptation

    Lachine, QB Canada
    2007

  • Children’s Home RTF
    Chenango Forks, NY USA
    2007

  • Alternative Day Programs – Centre de Readaptation
    Kirkland, QB Canada
    2009

  • Augusta Evans Special School
    Mobile, AL USA
    2007

  • Miami Jewish Home and Hospital
    Miami, FL USA
    2007

  • Central Wisconsin Center
    Madison, WI USA
    2009

  • Miami Jewish Home and Hospital-#2
    Miami, FL USA
    2009

  • St. John’s Nursing Center
    Ft. Lauderdale, FL USA
    2006

  • Extreme Makeover Home Edition
    Austin, TX USA (O’Donnell Family)
    2006

  • Southern Alberta Child and Youth
    Health -FLAMES House

    Calgary, AB Canada
    2009

  • Extreme Makeover Home Edition
    Hondo, TX USA (Craft Family)
    2006

  • Daytime Enrichment Activities
    Recreation

    Portland, OR USA
    2010

  • Cleveland, Tennessee Jr. High
    Cleveland, TN USA
    2010

  • Hondo, Texas Special Education
    Hondo, TX USA
    2006

  • Miami Cerebral Palsy Residential Center
    Miami, FL USA
    2006

  • Scarborough Village Alternative School
    Toronto, Ontario Canada
    2010

  • Anne Grady Center Pediatric
    Toledo, OH USA
    2010

  • AHRC – Seiff Educare
    Boemia, NY USA
    2010

  • Jewel C. Wietzel Education Center
    San Antonio, TX USA
    2006

  • Hospital Rivier-des-Prairies
    Montreal, QB Canada
    2006

  • United Cerabal Palsey – Birmingham
    Birmingham, AL USA
    2010

  • St. Peter’s Academy
    Benoit’s Cover, Bay of Islands, NL Canada
    2010

  • Lake Asbury Jr. High
    Green Cove Springs, FL USA
    2006

  • Allegany ARC
    Wellsville, NY
    2013

 
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Evolution of the Legacy of a Hidden Angel

We are extremely proud of the pioneering role we played many years ago in bringing multi-sensory environments (MSE) to North America and raising their profile since 2005.  Today throughout North America, more and more organizations are implementing multi-sensory stimulating environments for individuals with special needs.  We are excited that this will allow us to be more proactive in providing guidance and training in MSEs.  Thus, we are proud to provide our MSE online training course free of charge for those wishing to learn more about this recreational space that provides therapeutic and educational benefits.  You can access the training at www.msetraining.com

Over the years our namesake, Chris has been the driving force behind the numerous initiatives to enrich the lives of individuals with special needs by providing:

• Design and financial support for over 100 MSE rooms
• Intellectual property for the development of a program for premature babies
• Equipment and expertise for the use of MSE with seniors challenged by dementia / alzheimers
• Online training focused on MSE methodology and best use practices
• Donations to support food for special needs children in impoverished areas
• Formation and co-management of an unprecedented program to train first responders in dealing with individuals with special needs
• Developing companion pets through sensory stimulation and life experiences
• Design and construction of the first MSE environment designed for individuals with special needs that incorporates life without limits and nature as the sensory component
• Ongoing support for a playground designed for individuals with special needs
• Provided Multi Sensory Room on Extreme Makeover Home Edition to the Craft Family (Hondo, TX)

The preceding and the following illustrate the multifaceted legacy of an extraordinary young man who, to quote Kubler-Ross – “taught us love is the true meaning of life”.

As we move on from the funding and installing of multi-sensory rooms (as the support from others grows), the foundation will continue to exist as an open knowledge-based organization providing guidance to facilities wishing to implement a multi-sensory environment (MSE) for children and adults with special needs.

The Foundation website will become an informational and training tool to provide research-based methodology and information, including MSE concepts, MSE designs, equipment uses, MSE benefits, and operational training. Organizations looking for funding will be directed to other charitable organizations that support the use of multi-sensory environments in education, recreation, and therapy.

In addition it will provide a free online training program to provide knowledge on best practices and the overall philosophy of MSE based on decades of hands on experience.


The sister organization to CDHAF, Hidden Angel Companion Pets will also be providing information on the benefits of companion pets for children with special needs and best practices in raising a pet to be a natural companion animal. Pets provide therapeutic benefits such as companionship, love, humor, play, exercise, a sense of power and outlets for displacement, projection and nurturance; Talking to animals and the tactile experience of petting animals reduces stress and enhances physical health (including lowering blood pressure and reducing heart rate) and longevity; Animals enhance psychological development, improve social skills, increase independence, and increase self-esteem; Animals can be a source of comfort and contribute to ego strength among children; The human-animal bond supports empathy development, the ability to form and express attachments, and the reaction to grief and loss; and Dogs help increase activity among those with disabilities, prevent childhood obesity, promote recovery after a heart attack, and encourage walking in the elderly.

Looking ahead, those of us committed to Chris foresee many more initiatives reflecting his life and impacting the lives of others.