Circle of Friends
By: Marrisa Zentz
Litchfield High school has a social and language skills program
for special needs children, it is called circle of friends (CoF).
Circle of friends provides the skills needed for students to
build friendships with each other. According to one of the
groups advisors, Mrs. Sherrie Klein, “Circle of Friends is for
mentoring students and the target student to have
relationships that create social interactions with each other
and foster outside of school and in-school friendships,
especially when coordinating with another school.” Circle of
friends also provides a systematic approach to a multi-layered
program enabling students with disabilities to lead engaged
lives with their non-disabled peers and other people outside
their school and peer groups. These usually contain at least
two to four students, but more than that are welcome. Circle
of friends’ large monthly groups activities are a fun way for the
students to interact with other people outside of the school.
Some of the trips that they have taken so far include the Zoo in
Omaha and the Pumpkin patch at Gibbon. Mrs. Klein stated
that the activities are “generated by the target student and mentoring students’ input.”
Rachel Linden said that she enjoyed the trips that they have taken so far, calling them “good” and
“interesting.” She noted that, “the penguins were amazing,” on the zoo trip and she thinks that CoF
is helping the group socially. Meghan Kratzer mentioned, “I like how we get to interact with Rachel
and get to know Rachel personally.” Delaney LeFever likes CoF because they get to know “more
about Rachel and the things that she likes.”
According to Mrs. Klein, some future CoF events include “to interact with
preschoolers in assisting with eye-hand coordination and verbal
communication in making Christmas stockings. CoF will have a Christmas
party with Secret Santa's and sharing Christmas stories/traditions. In
January, our group will go to Big 5 for bowling and pizza, February will be
"speed dating" where everyone in the group will
rotate and ask each other questions about each
other, i.e. favorite color, music, travel etc. March we
will go as a group for Manicures and Pedicure's
before Prom. End of the year, April activity will be
Frisbee golf and Subway in Loup City. These will
be our main outings along with our bi-weekly
meetings that address social and autism
awareness.”
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