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About Friendships and Community

You may have a lovely home in a nice community, but you could still be lonely. Some people with disabilities have experienced abuse and discrimination, and have been not allowed to have ordinary opportunities to be part of community life and to form friendships.

Building friendships and community can be a difficult, slow process, but everyone can be a great citizen and form wonderful friendships and loving partnerships. This module will introduce you to friendships and community.

This module features presentations from many leading professionals and self-advocates, including Dave Hingsburger, Lynda Kahn, Margaret Cushen, and Steve Dymond.

After completing this module, you will be able to:

  • Explain some of the challenges of developing friendships and community.
  • Discuss the different ways that people think about friendships and community.
  • Describe what friendships and community mean.
  • Explain the value and importance of friendships and community.

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Supporting and Understanding Communication

Communication is the most complex human skill. It is the way we understand the world, express ourselves as individuals, make choices, develop relationships, build trust and control our lives. In this module, the renowned speech and language specialist, Sue Thurman, provides a comprehensive and straightforward introduction to the subject.

 

This module features presentations from a range of leading professionals and self-advocates, including Dave Hingsburger, Lynda Kahn, Kathie Snow, Jack Pearpoint, Simon Haywood, Brad Goldman, Steve Dymond, and Margaret Cushen.

 

On successful completion of this module, learners will be able to:

 

  • Define communication.
  • Describe the personal, social, and physical barriers to communication and the potential impact of these barriers.
  • Explain the importance of communication.
  • Understand the different ways people can communicate, including without words and your role in using the different forms of communication.
  • Describe in detail a wide variety of approaches that use alternative and augmentative communication.
  • Define how you can use your role to support good communication.

 

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Building Friendships and Community

http://youtu.be/SbNEig6HZwE

In this module, leading expert Kay Mills frames her personal experiences with stories of people she has worked with to comprehensively explain how we can help people to build friendships and community. Kay begins by defining both friendships and community and then goes on to explain their value. Finally, she offers a full range of strategies that workers can use to not only build but also maintain friendships and community.

This module features presentations from a range of leading professionals and self-advocates, including Dave Hingsburger, Lynda Kahn, Margaret Cushen, Steve Dymond, Beth Mount, Dave Hasbury, Patti Scott, and Jack Pearpoint.

On successful completion of this module, learners will be able to:

 

    • Explain the discrimination, prejudice and institutionalization that people have experienced and how it impacts on their experience of friendships and community.
    • Define and explain the importance of both friendship and community.
    • Describe a range of approaches and strategies that can be applied to help people to find and build friendships and community.
    • Explain the importance of and how people can maintain the friendships they have in their lives.
    • Detail the potential challenges that you may face and explain how you can help the people you support to tackle negative and discriminatory attitudes.