Start A Chapter

Circle of Friends (CoF) provides districts with three years of consultation for the development of program chapters.  Three workshops are conducted in Year 1 and Year 2 along with one workshop in Year 3.  Unlimited phone/email support between workshops and a comprehensive manual is included.

CoF offers guidance through a systematic approach to a multi-layered program that ultimately enables new chapters to become self-sufficient at the end of three years.  

During workshops, Program Facilitators—knowledgeable speech language pathologists or special education teachers—assigned to each district demonstrate ways to recruit and train general education students and show them how to model and shape the social language skills of their new friends with special needs.  

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Strategies of intervention are developed to facilitate interaction between students with and without disabilities on campus.  Also reviewed is how to thoughtfully organize Ability Awareness Presentations that allow participating students to speak to classmates who are not in the program about what they’ve learned in CoF—sharing an understanding and acceptance of differences with the entire campus. 

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If you are interested in starting a Circle of Friends chapter, contact Robyn Stack Reagan, Program Director at Robyn@circleofriends.org or call (310) 312-6600.