Fostering natural supports for people with disabilities

Natural supports and community connections are becoming increasingly important for people with disabilities, particularly as we move towards a model of Supported Independent Living.

The Circles of Support initiative, launched by Jayne Barrett (a leader within the community living movement in Southern Australia), has made a significant contribution to defining what natural supports are required to empower people to achieve independence in and control of their own life and destiny.

A Circle of Support is a group of people who meet on a regular basis to help a person to accomplish their goals in life. The Circle acts as a community around that person who, for one reason or another, is unable to achieve what they want in life on their own and decides to ask others for help.

However one chooses to define natural, community supports, their importance to people supported by NZDSN members cannot be overstated and we want your views on how best to broach this issue.

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We're interested to find ways in which to:

• Talk together about supporting people to meet people from other services
• Actively encourage people from other services to attend social events organised by their service
• Devise strategies to help people network across providers

We look forward to your views and feedback.

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