The Key to Independent Living: Making Good Friends for Life
We all need more practice developing and maintaining friendships in our lives. Making and maintaining friendships may be difficult for persons with disabilities, including young children, young adults, and mature people. While the confidence and development of social skills in the person who is able to achieve this goal can be seen as benefits of friendship and disability, it can be difficult to figure out who to trust and how to go about finding friends with cerebral palsy, autism, and other developmental disorders who can truly understand your point of view. A shared passion, ethos, circumstance, or objective is what unites individuals. Finding people who can support you on your journey to independent living and all of the benefits that may result from taking that initial step can be beneficial, even though not all of your friends necessarily need to be focusing on improving their social skills.
Resources for Young Adults with Autism
It can be challenging for people with special needs to mingle and establish new acquaintances. There are programs that can assist people, regardless of whether they merely lack confidence, need assistance developing their social talents and communication skills, or have other impairments and health issues that prohibit them from doing so. With the aid of All Friends Network, persons with disabilities may connect with others, make friends with people who have autism, cerebral palsy, and other developmental impairments, and engage in more activities outside of their homes. However, socializing is where it all begins. Interacting with people is a lifetime process that may make each person more self-assured and independent.
When you have a developmental disability, isolation is a common side effect, especially if no one is pushing you to make friends and get out there and meet new people. Although having a loving and supporting family is a wonderful thing, there is also merit in forming connections with people who are not related to you. Unfortunately, people with disabilities or impairments are frequently excluded from social events, family trips, and other get-togethers because their acquaintances or even family members may not think they can overcome their physical limitations. In order to effectively focus on increasing social ability, it is crucial to find and create more opportunities to go over problems with friendship and disability.
Develop Social Skills for Life
A nonprofit organization called All Friends Network connects young people with impairments. The network was established during the pandemic by cerebral palsy sufferer Trevor Kelliher as a method to bring individuals together to overcome problems with friendship and disability. This network and the free Live-LINK app that is linked with it can assist people who wish to work on building social ability to make new friends with cerebral palsy, autism, and other developmental impairments. Programs are in development and real-life events are currently scheduled and in place. The goal of All Friends Network is to teach individuals of all ages how to make new friends and develop enduring connections, with a special emphasis on young adults.
Our brand-new All Friends Network (AFN) Live-LINK software is made to allow users to speak with other AFN users in a secure and welcoming environment. We believe that many people will build lifetime connections through our website and app, and that the services provided here will make it simpler for them to work toward independent living and make friends with people who have cerebral palsy and other developmental impairments. Monthly gatherings will be focused on real-world interactions and tools for social skill development. Everybody needs a best buddy!
The Benefits of Friendship
Contact our team directly by calling 941-587-7172 or sending an email to info@allfriendsnetwork.org if you’re interested in learning more about the programs provided through the All Friends Network and the AFN Live-LINK app. Utilizing the contact form on our website, you can also get in touch with our staff to inquire about our programs and possibilities. We are eager to hear from you and welcome you to our expanding community. We look forward to hearing from you.