Making friendships is something most people take for granted, but for people with a severe to profound intellectual disability making friendships takes time and opportunity.
Many of the Cali students have known each other and been together since they were in Early Services as babies and then throughout their school years in St Catherine's Special School.
These friendships are very real and run deep. You see just how important these friendships are by the way in which these students greet each other so warmly and seek out each others' company.
Even though they may be involved in activities outside of Cali, being taken to activities where they interact with a new group of people for an hour a week may be stimulating and fun, but may not allow enough time or be the kind of environment where deeper friendships can evolve.
All of our students communicate in a blended way involving speech, Lámh (signing for people with disabilities, PECS (Picture Exchange System) and talker devices. Many of these are difficult to use where others don't understand these ways of communicating or can take the time to connect.
People with a severe to profound intellectual disability are also largely reliant on others to facilitate them accessing potential new friendship groups.
So it is very important for those supporting this group to help create opportunities for social, sporting or other community interactions that would enable new friendships to flourish.
