Community Connections

Community Connections

BRAINSTORMING
Purpose

To help people develop their interests and to find connections within the community.

Instructions

Discuss with them a variety of environmental situations to find potential matches in the community to develop interests.

Choose one interest from ideas generated during an opening round. For example, the interest might be photography. Brainstorm this list, with everyone in the audience adding ideas. Ask: “Where is any possible place that someone could be employed, related to photography in any way? Anywhere at all? Where is any possible place where someone could volunteer their time to do photography?” List all possible places, even just loosely related to photography. Then ask, “Where could someone learn more about photography? Where could a person develop skills related to photography or just learn about taking pictures? And are there any places that a hobby or club or just for fun could be related to photography?” Be sure to include all people in the audience, ask everyone for one idea. You do not have to go in order, all of the employment ideas first, etc. Remind people of brainstorming rules: all ideas count, no discussion, the sillier and crazier the better. Go fast, through the audience, keep asking everyone for an idea. You may need more than one flipchart paper. It often works best to have 1 person facilitating and another person (with fast handwriting) recording.

After the list is exhausted, ask the person (with support if necessary) to pick their top three (five if necessary) ideas. Where are they most interested? What would they like to try? Circle these ideas. For some people who have trouble with picking the top 3 or 5 you can ask which are really good ideas and give them a blue check. Then ask which among the good ideas are great and give them a red check. If the person is not present with you during the training, then just ask the audience to suggest the top four they would like to see developed further. Circle these.

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ACTION PLANNING FOR CONSIDERATION

Purpose

To increase the likelihood that connecting a person in their community will be successful and satisfying for them.

Instructions

The people who support the person will identify these things after they have agreed on a place or activity to focus their interests.

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CONNECTING INTERESTS

Purpose

To increase a person from being present, to participating, and to ultimately connecting within the community.

Instructions

Ask them to answer the following questions. Listen and observe to see if some answers are silently revealed. Use the one or two focus areas identified in brainstorming.

Is the person present?

  • What will we see if the person is present?
  • How will we know he is present?

Is the person participating?

  • What will see when the person is participating?
  • How will we know he is participating?

Is the person connecting?

  • What will we see when the person is connecting here?
  • How will we know he is connecting?

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Supporting Families

IF I COULD, I WOULD

Purpose

To find out what is Important, but not present, to key people in the person’s life.

Instructions

Ask the person to identify key people that he/she lives with and list those activities they would like to do but are currently unable to do.

FAMILY GRAPHIC

Purpose

The Family Graphic is an additional way to pull together the information discovered in the other tools. It can be done on a large chart paper or on a regular sheet of copy paper. It is a visually pleasing way to focus on Important To and Important For for both the whole family and each individual. Once this graphic is completed, you can discuss with the family a more focused What’s Working/What’s Not Working in the family which can lead to an action plan to begin to support the whole family.

Instructions

Enter the family’s last name inside the sun. Insert rays of the rainbow for each person in the family. Fill in the categories for each person: who I am; what is important to me; what’s important for me; supports I need. Work with the person and family members to complete the four clouds surrounding the rainbow. Ask each family member to look at the graphic to make sure all information is openly shared.

Family Graphic is a tool that requires specific training. For more training on this tool, contact Support Development Associates at info@sdaus.com.

FAMILY DESCRIPTION

Purpose

Supporting families/caregivers living together has long been recognized as a model of best practices in the developmental disability field. This tool helps develop a family/caregiver description which identifies how family/caregiver needs impact a person’s life. It identifies what paid supporters need to know, what they need to do to provide support for the family/caregiver to live together while balancing the needs of all family/caregiver members.

Instructions

Using information gained from other person centered practice tools you can also use with families/caregivers, have a conversation with the family/caregivers that will focus on the Family Description chart headings. Using “Guess, Ask, Write,” fill in the chart for each family member.

Family Description is a tool that requires specific training. For more training on this tool, contact Support Development Associates at info@sdaus.com.

Core Concepts: Important To/Important For

Purpose

A way to help describe both how someone wants to live and a reasonable balance between the components that make-up Important To and Important For. Forms the foundation of all of the other work. As the core concept this is at the center of planning and practice. All of the tools that follow are intended to be used to

  • Learn more and inform ourselves about Important To;
  • Find a better balance between “to” and “for”
  • Discover how to implement what is learned

Instructions

We need to always ask what do we know before we ask what should we do? As people build their competency in thinking this way, all conversations about addressing issues begin with what do we know about what is Important To and what is Important For and the balance between them. Remember that Import To is learned through a discovery process. The tools we have found most useful are available here.

Stories and Examples

The following people and their stories have been chosen to illustrate examples of how the tools might be used with varying people and circumstances. Each person is introduced using one page profiles. Remember that one page profiles are developed using the discovery tools.