According to The Employment and Disability Institute (click here to read the whole article) there are four steps to creating a Circle of Support:
1. Begin with a vision
What does the person wants to accomplish? How can their friends and family members help to reach the vision in manageable steps.
2. Leverage capacities to empower the focus person
The person with a disability has natural resources, talents, and interests that can assist to reach the goal. Recognize the strengths of the person.
3. Find people who are interested in and care about the person
Who will commit their own talents to help the person move forward by doing things with them rather than for them.
4. Find community connections
Both the internal community of the person’s life such as families and friends and the external community such as neighbors and community resources can assist in reaching the goal.
To build Circles of Support, Support Brokers will first identify the people who are supportive and involved in the lives of their employers. To do this, a tool such as Circle of Friends can help. Brokers can use this simple tool to find out who the important people are in a person's life, as well as, the range of support that comes from acquaintances and paid staff. An example, of a Circle of Friends is located in the article by Joanne Wilson described below.
Author Joanne Wilson provides a simple overview of Circles of Support. Additionally, she provides a worksheet, CIRCLE OF FRIENDS that you can download to use when you begin to create circles of support with your employers. Pay close attention to what each circle represents.
As Joanne Wilson describes about the Circle of Friends, immediate family (intimacy circle) and paid providers ( economic exchange circle ) are often the most frequently identified supports by people with disabilities. To avoid an over reliance on family and support staff it is important to begin to expand the Circle as soon as possible. Look to neighbors who show an interest, a local community member such as the person's banker, a church member, a co-worker. Circles of Support are as unique and varied as is each individual. There is no law that says a Circle of Support must have at least five members or that there must be a family member, neighbor and social worker to be successful. Remember, the Circle should be those people that your employer would invite to a party to celebrate reaching his or her goal.
The Support Broker's role is to assure that a strong Circle of Support is created and that each member of the team acknowledge that they are advocates, supporters, and contributors to the life of the person with a disability.
Listen as Bob Quast describes what a Circle is to him.
Bob
Quast
By sharing who is in his Circle of Support, Bob shows that anyone can be in the circle. Why is it important for Brokers to look beyond paid staff and immediate family members when creating a circle?
USING THE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS TOOL
The following videos provide examples of how to introduce and talk about friends, family and supports. These clips were shot over two days and in multiple environments. The most important factor to using a tool such as Circle of Friends is to understand that everyone defines family, friends, and supports differently. Therefore, each meeting is an opportunity to learn about who and what is important to your employer.
Chase Doty
This series of clips provides an introduction and a look at completing the Circle of Friends tool. To conclude, you will see a summary of the completed tool and what that picture might tell you.
Chase Doty
This series of clips provides examples of how to move from one circle to the next. Sometimes it might help your employers to hear how the tool helps you as their Support Broker to visualize or understand their needs more fully.
Use of a tool like Circle of Friends can help you see areas of need
for your employer's life. In cases where paid support staff
are over-represented in the circle, there could be a risk of turn
over, poor coverage or staff changes affecting support delivery.
Similarly, when family is the only connection, support systems could
quickly become overwhelmed at times of stress, illness or loss.
This tool helps everyone on the team to visualize areas where support
is strong and areas that need to be strengthened.
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