Are you struggling to help your family member with a disability to form friendships with their non disabled peers? It’s a painful experience seeing them struggle isn’t it.

We know that friendships are key for a good life.  They bring us joy, a sense of belonging, can help us out in a crisis and bring us more good life opportunities.  So as parents, we really, really, really want our family member with a disability to have friends in their lives don’t we.

Friendships are indeed mystical and magical things that you can’t force to happen.  Many friendship programs focus on developing the individual’s social skills.  While it’s important to help skill development in this area, there are also ways of support friendships without seeing the person with a disability and their low level of social skills as being the problem.

There are things you (and support workers) can do to create environments where they are more likely to form.

Janet Klees proposes 5 Ps

Janet Klees is a Canadian expert in building relationships between people with and without disability.  She proposes these 5 Ps:

Person – know in depth the interests, skills, and conditions for success around this interest.

Place – find the places in the community where this interest can be shared

Presence – show up at this place at the same time each week

People – support the people in these places to get to know and interact with your family member – a role for support workers.

Purpose – craft a role for your family member in these places around their interests that others will value.

I’ve added my own two Ps

Patience – it can take years to build friendships.   Try not to rush things and take your time.  Your family member will still be having fun doing the activity they love so it won’t matter if it takes many months or even years for relationships to form.

Persistence – if it’s not working – go back over the 5 Ps above – it’s highly likely that one or more of them isn’t quite working.

Free online course for supports on Friendship Building

This course takes supports step by step to apply the 5P strategy to increase the likelihood of your family member being able to form friendships. It’s FREE!

Sign up here










Categories: Friendships