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Social Skills & Friendship Programs Two Friends
Like everyone, the students and residents we work with need friends. Real friends, not just people whose chosen work it is to spend time with them. To form and maintain real friendships, people with developmental disabilities need more than encouragement and opportunities or situations where friendships can develop naturally. They need to develop the skills that attract and nurture friendships. Three Friends On-going Training in Assertive Communication
At Via Center, we encourage everyone to be as conscious as they can of how their words and actions influence the feelings and thoughts of other people and to carry this awareness beyond our own community to people from other communities as well, people from the family, from the workplace, and from the neighborhood, from all the various communities to which we all belong. Having a developmental disability can be tough. And challenging behaviors often result from frustrations associated with the disability. Living or working with these challenging behaviors can also be tough, and fraught with problems and frustrations. Non-violent, assertive communication and problem-solving can do a great deal to alleviate some of the problems and frustrations associated with disabilities. Non-violent, assertive communication is a key ingredient in Via Center's educational and behavioral programming and its commitment to win-win solutions. One example is worth a thousand words. At Via, we try to exemplify non-violent problem-solving by taking an assertive, communicative approach to any issues, large or small, that may arise in our interactions with one another. Staff, students, parents, teachers and administration are encouraged to keep channels of communication open by giving immediate feedback in the clearest, most honest, and respectful manner possible. Other structures within the program also help us increase sensitivity and respect for the needs, feelings and sensibilities of others. Hats-off Meetings
In these meetings, we put aside our roles or "hats" to talk openly about feelings and frustrations or problems in morale. Meetings can be called by anyone and can be between staff and administration, between the classroom teacher and instructional assistants, or between staff or admin and students. We have found the meetings helpful at times when fresh-air and fresh viewpoints are needed. The ground-rules for Hats-off Meetings are
Events Via people like to enjoy life. Since we think good fun brings out the best in both staff and students, we all love occasions and events and have a great many throughout the year.  Spring Prom 2007 Social Skills & Friendship Classes Programs with Black Pines Circle School Experience has taught us that no amount of skilled staff intervention or well-directed teaching can have the same kind of impact on Via students as the responses of neuro-typical or non-disabled peers. We are fortunate in having Black Pines Circle School as our neighbor and with Black Pines have developed activities that benefit students from both schools. The students come to us each Friday, bringing their intelligence, their humor, and their teen-age world-view and culture to the Friday Club-meetings. Current Friday Clubs include Art, Communication and Social-skills, Materials-making, and Cooking. Meetings are lively and invariably interesting. In addition to the Friday program, our understanding and hospitable neighbors at Black Pines Circle school have made it possible for some Via students to eat lunch and attend classes at their site. We appreciate the relationship and have observed lasting benefits to both student-groups from the mainstreaming and reverse-mainstreaming experiences they share.
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