A Network for your Family Member
A network or circle of friends who provide support beyond the family permits everyone to have a break. For your young person, having other people who enjoy spending time with them can be a confidence-builder as well.
Help him or her to understand the role of a support circle. Involve your family member in the process from the start, so that they take as much ownership for their circle as possible. Ask them to think about their goals and hopes. Allow their dreams to come up.
Jaclyn’s Support Circle
Jaclyn works with her mom to prepare for her Support Circle meetings. A few days before, she calls the people to remind them. She helps prepare refreshments. When each person arrives she greets them at the door and helps them hang up their coat. When the meeting begins, the person leading it asks Jaclyn to share. She reads from her journal. She tells how she has been doing with the goals that she has set, and she mentions any problems and opportunities that have come up since their last meeting. She’s a good example of the way a young person can take ownership of her network.
Some suggestions for who to invite—go beyond those who will be obvious to you:
Look to your family member’s social circle and to those already involved with them in a recreation activity or hobby.
Consider people in your neighbourhood. Are there any family members of their friends/acquaintances that you have hit it off with?
Is there a service club where some members might welcome such a relationship?
Look to your family member’s school: Ask the special education teacher for contacts with other families or with your family member’s peers. Confidentiality will apply, but you can give permission to the teacher to pass on your contact information as they see fit. Teachers can sometimes be helpful even some years after young people have left school.
The Potential of Inter-Generational Friendships
Consider the possibility of friendships with people of all ages. Pay attention to what works for your family member, like this parent: “My son seems to find it easier to connect with adults. Due to some communication challenges, it strikes me that peers find it somewhat difficult to connect with him.”
Johanne and Kim - Family and Friends
Johanne and Kim are sisters-in-law and also good friends. They speak about their friendship and things they like to do together. Johanne talks about how Kim has changed her view of life.
(French with English subtitles)
Download TranscriptForming the network
Here is a fairly formal approach which you can adapt:
Start with a brainstorming get-together to decide whom to invite into your child’s network.
Consider using a tool such as Circle of Friends or PLAN (see resources section or link below) to help keep your young person at the centre and to move the planning forward.
For this initial meeting invite key people in your family member’s life and people who have shown an interest in them. Invite a teacher or former teacher if there is one. Include some or all of your own family support network.
Make sure you are inviting mostly people who may be able to make a commitment. (A meeting of only professionals will not lead to a successful result: they will not have the time to give to one individual’s circle.)
Start the meeting with your young person sharing their hopes for friendships and things they would like to do. You will want to work with them ahead of time so they can express these—if not in words perhaps in pictures.
Encourage people to be creative about how dreams might be fulfilled. For instance, if your young person would like to get out on the road on a Harley-Davidson but would not be a safe driver, perhaps someone in the meeting would approach a motorcycle club to see if a member might like to take your family member with him on rides. Engaging in an activity that both individuals enjoy can help allow a friendship to form, especially if a person’s conversation skills are limited.
Be open to all ideas in the brainstorming session. Take good notes as people suggest potential friends. A group of friends will ideally include people of different abilities, ages and genders, and people with common interests.
The brainstorming meeting should end with a list of people to invite into a network and a distribution of tasks among committed people who are present.
Follow a similar process in inviting and formalizing the support network, setting meetings, and agreeing on tasks. Again, make the meetings fun for everyone.
The Best Places for Links to Form
“I think that parents must be very involved at the beginning in order to establish links with friends. Then the young person can continue on his own if the friends are fairly accessible. Organizations play a big part in finding the best links - Special Olympics and other groups for people who have intellectual disabilties. Special recreational activities remain the best soluntion when it comes to finding and keeping friends.”
Family member, QC
Follow Their Interests!
“Find something that your teen is keenly interested in and focus on that – in our case it was gardening – it has led to volunteer work in a garden center and non-profit land conservancy garden – is now entering college this fall to take an adult special ed gardening program.”
CT, BC
This document gives a simple description of the approach of PLAN (Planned Lifetime Advocacy Networks) to forming supportive networks of friends. It includes links to more information about PLAN.
This document explains “Circle of Friends” and how to use this tool. (It can also be helpful to young people in deciding how close a friends is. This can help with knowing how to act with that friend.)
(Extracted with permission from the 2009 Inclusion Press booklet, “Planning for Real Life after School”, prepared by the Marsha Forest Centre.)