Thank you for helping to widen the friendships between people with disabilities and without disabilities. We have posted both the introductory training and facilitators guide below to help you as you train people. This training is intended for a wide audience including people with disabilities, families, staff, and others in our communities.
Facilitators: Pair up the participants, give each person a copy of the questions below and give them a few minutes to find the answers from their partner. Then have each person introduce their partner to the group. This demonstrates the importance of knowing people when your role is to help them establish relationships. It also helps demonstrates the skills required in making introductions.
Trainers who are presenting to an audience of high school students (with and without disabilities) or to parents/teachers of high school students may want to show this video as part of their presentation.
If you are looking for confirmation that friendships between people with and without make a difference, please watch this video. Abby eloquently describes the impact that her friend and others in their Best Buddies Program have had on her and the entire graduating class of 2012. Abby graduated from Wahconah Regional High School and is attending Williams College. The clip is 10 minutes long, but if previewed by the trainer, there are some good points in Abby’ speech that can be extrapolated and discussed.
