The Special Olympics Needs Your Hearing Help! A Podcast Interview with Dr Timothy Shriver and Brandon Sawalich

Karl Strom:
Welcome to the Hearing Review podcast. I’m Karl Strom, editor of the Hearing Review magazine, its website @hearingreview.com. Today I have my guests, Dr. Timothy Shriver, who is the chairman of the Special Olympics International Board of Directors and Brandon Sawalich, who is President and CEO of Starkey Hearing Technologies. Dr. Shriver, along with six million Special Olympic athletes in more than 200 countries helps promote health, education in a more unified world through the joy of the sport.

Karl Strom:
He has been the leading educator who focuses on social and emotional factors in learning and has an extremely impressive history of working and leading many organizations, most of which are related to the area of intellectual and developmental disabilities. Dr. Shriver has been involved with the Special Olympics for over 25 years. Dr. Shriver, welcome.

Timothy Shriver:
Thank you for having me. It’s a joy to be with you guys and to be able to hear and share the message of our movement.

Karl Strom:
We also have on this podcast, Brandon Sawalich who started in this business about the same time I did way back in 1994 and worked his way up. I think Brandon, you were working at the Earmold Lab first and worked his way all the way up to president. Brandon, along with Bill and Tani Austin is a forward thinking leader at Starkey and is someone who understand that our hearing care field is committed to helping everyone who has hearing problems live a fulfilling and connected life. Welcome, Brandon.

Brandon Sawalich:
Thank you, Karl. And thanks for having us and getting the message out for all you do.

Karl Strom:
Both of you join us today from an event being held at Starkey headquarters in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. So maybe to kick things off, I should ask you about the event at Starkey today and what’s being announced.

Brandon Sawalich:
Well, what we’re doing Karl, and thank you for asking is, the relationship has been there for quite a while and what we’ve always done is, our purpose is obviously connecting people with people and we’ve been honored to be part of these Special Olympics for the last couple years when they were some of their world games and helping the athletes, the Minnesota Special Olympics for over 10 years as I served on the board here.

Brandon Sawalich:
And now we’re announcing today our global partnership with a Special Olympics, which is why Tim is here. We have some athletes here on campus that were being fit with state of the art, new hearing aids, and we’re really celebrating the giving and the purpose and helping one another.

Karl Strom:
Great. And Tim, your Special Olympics involvement goes way, way back along with a couple thousand other hearing care professionals, I was lucky enough to see Tim’s presentation at the Starkey Innovations Expo in Las Vegas in 2020, just be for the pandemic hit. I’m sure Brandon will agree that Tim, you told a moving story about how your aunt Rosemary Kennedy and the sister of your mom, Eunice Kennedy Shriver made a profound impact on your grandparents and your family, and really ultimately the global population of millions of people. Can you revisit for me a little bit about the Genesis of the Special Olympics and how it [inaudible 00:03:48] through the year?

Timothy Shriver:
Yeah. Well, first I’d just like to say to Brandon and to the entire Starkey family, how grateful all of us in Special Olympics are for this partnership. This is a game changing, a life changing alliance. Most people know and I think many people admire the athletes of Special Olympics because of their accomplishments in sports, their capacity to run where others thought they couldn’t, their capacity to plan on a team where others thought that was unreachable, their capacity to speak, to lead, to be articulate visionaries for their communities and their families and their country.

Timothy Shriver:
But most people don’t know that most Special Olympics athletes, the vast, vast majority are denied healthcare services around the world. Most people don’t know that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are less likely to get treated by doctors, audiologists, dentists, physical therapists, than others. Most people don’t know that during COVID people with intellectual disability suffered enormous pain from isolation, from disease, six times more likely to die from COVID than their non disabled peers, usually because of neglect and the absence of care not because of the disability.

Timothy Shriver:
So what people don’t know is that when we announce a partnership like this, we are not just expanding the sports platform of Special Olympics, but we’re expanding the challenge to make healthcare just an equitable and inclusive. We’re expanding the challenge to ask healthcare practitioners around the world to become ambassadors of equity and justice and inclusion in healthcare. And we’re saying that if a person with an intellectual disability can’t hear, they deserve care just as much as anybody else. I mean, I know that shouldn’t be shocking.

Timothy Shriver:
It shouldn’t be shocking to say that if I’m 20, or 30 years old, and I have an intellectual disability, and I’m having hearing loss, I deserve a hearing aid, but unfortunately that is not the norm. And many, many people don’t understand that today the Special Olympics movement is the largest public health organization in the world, public health organization, not just sports organization, public health organization in the world, advocating for the full inclusion of people with intellectual and developmental challenges in healthcare. And you ask me, where did this all come from?

Timothy Shriver:
I mean, this came in large measure going back 50, or 100 years from my mother who had a sister with an intellectual disability, my aunt Rosemary, and she had brothers who were very successful and very popular and very public in their roles in life. Two United States senators in one United States president were her brothers, but she saw not just the achievements of her brothers, but the injustice facing her sister. She saw not just all the achievements and accolades that her brothers could get through politics, but the importance of her sister as a force for good in their own family.

Timothy Shriver:
So she started the Special Olympics movement to try to heal and address the injustice and intolerance in our culture. And using this unlikely weapon, if you will, I don’t like to use words of war, but she used an unlikely tool to affect social change. The tool was sports. Let’s get people to meet. Let’s get people to see each other as gifted and if you say to yourself, well, is that important today? I don’t think there’s anything more important today. I don’t think that… I mean, in this post I hope, we hope and pray a post pandemic world where we still have division.

Timothy Shriver:
We still have violence. We still have misunderstanding. We still have bullies in our own communities, in our country, around the world. We need a big movement that brings together great leaders to say, we want to heal the vision, not make it worse. We want to bring people the together across divides, not separate them. We want to promote understanding and equality, not hierarchies and demonizing. So look, someone might look at this and say, well, that’s wonderful that Starkey is going to be supplying hearing instruments for people with intellectual and developmental disability. That’s a life changing gift.

Timothy Shriver:
But the bigger gift here is the gift of hope, the gift of justice, the gift of inclusion. And that gift is much, I would dare say, even more powerful than the hearing instruments that will be the symbol of this part partnership, because what the Austins have done here at Starkey is create a company that carries as much a mission of hope and decency and human values as it does of business. And that’s really the future we need across healthcare.

Brandon Sawalich:
[inaudible 00:08:59] better myself when you think of Starkey people are the bottom line. Mr. Austin has told me this as long as I’ve been at Starkey and we play our part in helping and humanity, but our hearts are really helping people and people to Special Olympics is… Hearing is a key to understanding, and we need to listen to each other a lot more than we are. And I can only imagine when your mother started and the challenges then compared to the challenges now are unfathomable, because people didn’t understand, they weren’t listening or understanding it could be done.

Brandon Sawalich:
But Starkey’s always had the heart of not thinking about disability. We look at the ability, what’s the ability that we could find in people. And with Starkey cares, when we rolled out this initiative, it was our first choice and only choice as of now to partner with the Special Olympics being because of the alignment of our cultures and our vision and helping one another and helping people that, you know what? They need that little extra support and being heard.

Karl Strom:
And Bill Austin, the founder of Starkey oftentimes emphasizes just how communication and hearing are the link and really one of the main ways to fight rejection and exclusion to show that caring for somebody is extremely vital in society and so much lacking in a lot of cultures when it comes to differences of people, whether it’s intellectual and developmental disabilities, or other factors.

Karl Strom:
One of the most intriguing parts that I always hear from participants and volunteers of the Special Olympics, is that they get almost as much out of it as the volunteers sometimes. They find out a lot about themselves. Can you talk to a little bit of the Tim and Brandon?

Timothy Shriver:
Well, look, I think the Special Olympics movement is a movement that is focused on encounter. People meeting across divides. Many, many, many millions of people with intellectual disabilities are unseen not to mention unheard in their own communities. Sometimes the first time someone in a neighborhood, or a village, or a town sees a person with an intellectual disability is at a local Special Olympics event. In a normal year, there are 100,000 Special Olympics games every year. Everyone is a chance for people to meet, to see each other, to listen, to deepen their respect for, and the dignity of the other.

Timothy Shriver:
So this is a revelation for all of us that we can meet each other without judgment, without fear, without anger and hostility. And when people find themselves in these encounters, whether the person thinks they’re coming to help a person with special needs, many people come to help and they find themselves, a blinder’s removed, life view changed, their hearts opened, relationships created almost in the blink of an eye. And the volunteers often walk away sometimes with tears in their eyes thinking, “I’ll never be the same.” And our athletes have the same often the same experience they come. No one’s cheered for them.

Timothy Shriver:
I’ll never forget one athlete saying to me, after he ran his first race, “I looked around and I heard a terribly loud noise. And I looked up and I saw people cheering.” And I said, “What are they cheering for? What are they cheering for? And all of a sudden realized they’re cheering for me.” He was 16 years old. No one had ever cheered for him in his entire life. So these are moments of profound transformation for all of us. Sometimes very small. Sometimes you don’t even notice them when they happen. Sometimes six weeks, or six months, or even six years later, someone says, “I remember that moment. It changed me. It moved me. It transformed my heart, my mind the way I think.”

Timothy Shriver:
So this is a movement of encounter and I’m going to speak boldly here. I think the Austins, the zoologists, the team here at Starkey, I think they’ve grown and changed as much as our athletes have grown and changed through this relationship. I don’t mean to be arrogant in saying that, but I just know from my experience, from my own life, that of us who come many times believing we’re here to help people with intellectual disabilities. We leave believing they helped us.

Brandon Sawalich:
And you feel it too. I mean, you feel it as you’ve created a community and a community of people where yes, you’ve changed lives as we’ve changed lives in different areas through hearing. You’ve change lives with the 16 year old kid that you can’t even fathom. I mean, the confidence that gave, and just that story, you could think of how many more lives that we don’t know about. And especially now as from our small part in the overall big community of Special Olympics what they do, we’re connecting the athletes with people and the crowd and others where they can be heard because they can understand and listen around them, especially a post pandemic. So we can say, hopefully we’re in that where it’s a very lonely world.

Brandon Sawalich:
And if you’re an athlete with intellectual disabilities and other challenges, and you can’t hear, what’s your pride and your self worth and your confidence. So if we can play our part, which we are stepping up and absolutely will do all we can to help as many kids as we can in athletes be bigger and better and give them that self confidence. That’s where business is great, but when you have a purpose and you can change somebody’s lives, Karl you know this, we can see the hearing smiles. You see that smile come across the face and it’s priceless and it’s addicting. And do more.

Karl Strom:
And if I remember your presentation, Tim, you mentioned that somewhere around 30% of Special Olympics athletes, when tested are found to have untreated hearing loss, question for both of you, what’s the best way that hearing care professionals can pitch in and help the Special Olympics, where do you start? And how can we help these athletes and their families?

Timothy Shriver:
Well, look, I think the best way right now, if you’re hearing professionals to connect with the Starkey community and find out what kinds of hearing devices how we can get support for them, for people who maybe can’t afford them, or don’t have the resources to get them, we can find out what the training opportunities are to learn. There’s professional resource and development resources here within our Special Olympics healthy athletes world on our website, there are directories of events, which we hope again are coming back to life now where people can volunteer for an hour or five, or seven and come down to our healthy hearing booths that are larger events and volunteer to do screenings.

Timothy Shriver:
Help athletes understand their hearing health, understand their hearing needs, understand their hearing changes over the course of their lives. So we need help. We need help from hearing professionals to care for our community, to join this partnership, to volunteer. And most importantly, in their regular practices. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met with the medical professional, who will close the door and say, “Look, it’s just not possible for me to care for this population. It’s just not profitable. It’s just not realistic.” And even one guy said to me another doctor told him, “I don’t want them in my waiting room.”

Timothy Shriver:
So, we need healthcare professionals to stick up for our community. We need them to stick up, stand up and maybe I dare say, listen up.

Brandon Sawalich:
Yeah. And get involved. I mean, as I mentioned, I got involved with the Minnesota Special Olympics Chapter and separate from the global, but the same purpose and cause, and the admiration for what they do, hearing professionals. And I know the hearts of our customers and our profession. They can get involved and find out how to get involved in local events, in their community and with the state.

Karl Strom:
That’s great. Well, I know both of you are very busy at Starkey today and I really appreciate your time. Is there anything else that you want to tell audiologists, your hearing care providers regarding the Special Olympics or people with intellectual disabilities? I’ve really want to emphasize where they can start today.

Brandon Sawalich:
So I’ll go first and then Tim can close it out, but for me is, I know their hearts is let’s don’t talk about it, let’s do it. We say, we’re going to do something, then let’s do it. And even if it’s one, or five athletes or something in their local community and Starkey and Starkey cares can help them get connected and get involved because we’re not looking for somebody just to hang a sign in their office or say they probably [inaudible 00:19:00]. Let’s support with action and in making a difference.

Timothy Shriver:
I couldn’t say it any better. Look, this is the time for a new normal. We don’t need to reopen and go back to the old normal. We have been through, I mean, I’m going to say it in strong, we’ve been through hell as a human community the last two years. We’ve grieved the loss of people we couldn’t even visit in the hospital. We’ve dealt with a kind of an uncertainty, the likes of which no one has ever lived through. We’ve seen our children suffer. We’ve seen our mental health degrade. We’ve seen injustice on the screens in front of us that many people seem not to even know existed.

Timothy Shriver:
So we got to come out of this different. We got to come out of this with a new normal, not the old normal. And I would just ask anybody listening to this, take out a piece of paper, or make a mental note. What’s a new normal I can help create that has more equitable, more inclusive, more just and more joyful? And if the new normal might be, “I’m committing myself to making sure that the people with intellectual and developmental differences can hear,” then you’re welcome to join us. We need you. We want you and we’re determined to succeed with you.

Brandon Sawalich:
Because there’s too much judgment and divisiveness. We need to start judging people and looking at their hearts, judge them by their hearts and what they want to do and how they care. We got enough political statements and stuff. We all need to come together and just help one another.

Karl Strom:
Absolutely. Tim Shriver and Brandon Sawalich, thank you so much for what you do and for the time you spent with us today on the Hearing Review podcast. I’ll be posting some contact information regarding the Special Olympics and how people can get involved on the landing page of this website. Thank you so much, gentlemen.

Timothy Shriver:
Thank for having us.

Brandon Sawalich:
Thank you, Karl. Appreciate you.