Know the feeling you get when you're around friends who really care for you, who really love you, who really see you? The state of being friends collectively contributes to the rich tapestry of interpersonal relationships needed for everyone--especially children, teens, and young adults--to thrive. Every person deserves this, regardless of ability. The Friendship Circle of Washington creates opportunities for friendship and connection for kids, teens, and young adults with disabilities. 

Students at Bellevue High, and in 47 other local area schools, are doing just this! The impetus for high schoolers to volunteer comes through many avenues. Sometimes it is family initiated and other times it’s to meet the required school service hours for graduation. Whatever the reason, the fact that over 200 teens across King County volunteer with Friendship Circle and become lifelong friends with kids they might not otherwise have met is amazing. Truly! Friendship is contagious and love is authentic when kids see each other without barriers, where all people are special, interesting, and important. Teen volunteers come back again and again because they, too, feel connection and love. Friendship matters because everyone matters.

Trust is at the center of Friendship Circle for parents of children with disabilities. A parent of a child or children with special needs has one primary focus - keeping their child alive and safe. Parents of children with special needs have so many responsibilities, including managing medications, treatments, and therapies, which oftentimes adds extra stress to already busy daily lives and makes it harder to care for the entire family. So, when an organization like Friendship Circle shows up on their radar and offers the gift of emotional connection and true friendship for their child to experience, the response is beyond measure. These friendships are more precious than gold to participating families. 

What’s the special sauce of Friendship Circle? It starts by envisioning a world in which people with special needs and their families experience acceptance and friendship as contributing members of society. It continues with the aspiration for a future where they always enjoy social inclusion and fair treatment, free from the challenges of social isolation or inequality.

Bellevue High students actively participate in two of the multitude of programs offered through Friendship Circle - Sunday Circle and Teen & Young Adult Life Skills. 

Sunday Circle meets the urgent need for social-emotional skill-building and societal inclusion for children ages 5-18 with disabilities. Throughout each two-hour, twice-monthly Sunday Circle, participant-teen volunteer matches rotate through 5 rooms, each housing a different therapeutic recreational activity. Certain activities are present at every Sunday Circle: music therapy, sports, movement therapy, STEM activities, and art. Other activities are occasional and are hosted by special guests. All activities are strategically designed by experts in the special needs field to facilitate friendship and hard and soft skill-building.

Teen & Young Adult Life Skills addresses the need for social inclusion, life skills development, and digital literacy education that leads to self-reliance, successful integration into the wider world, and overall improved quality of life. Supported by a team of professionals in special needs education, participants refine their ability to successfully navigate social situations and critical life and digital skills activities through an engaging, mixed media curriculum. We use the same matching process as in Sunday Circle. Matches engage in activities side-by-side, building lasting friendship that comes with time spent learning and growing together. Here again, our unique matching model has many benefits: exposing youth with special needs to pivotal relationships that they are too often excluded from; building social-emotional skills that are critical to participants’ successful integration into the wider world; and developing leadership skills in typically developing teen volunteers.

And for the teen volunteers in Bellevue and greater King County, Friendship Circle makes mental wellbeing a huge priority with our U-Matter program. U-Matter addresses the critical need for a range of mental health programs and services for teens, equipping them with the internal tools and external support networks to successfully navigate mental health challenges and prevent future crises. While a vast array of traditional therapies exist, our team recognized a gap in these approaches – a lack of critical community connections. One-on-one talk therapy can be incredibly effective for many people and U-Matter is an ideal complementary service that aids youth in integrating what they're going through into everyday conversation with peers, thereby normalizing their experience.

For children, teens, and young adults with special needs, and their families, the connections created in Friendship Circle touch the depths of their souls. For many, they feel, for the first time, how deeply they matter to someone else. Whether you are a family with children who have special needs or neurotypical teens, Friendship Circle can touch your soul too. Find out more at: 

Web: friendshipcirclewa.org

Text Sari Weiss at 206-491-3450.