Do What is Best- Not What is Easiest

How can we, as direct support professionals, help the people we support overcome loneliness? It is not as if we can force people to be their friends, or force them to meet new people.

Of course not. The issue is never about forcing anybody to do anything. We are supposed to look for anything that hampers the ability to form relationships and then remove those barriers.

Sometimes the issue is as simple as introducing the supported person to other people in the community and then watching them flourish. Sometimes, but not usually. If simple introductions were the prime barrier to inclusion, we would no longer be needed. The barriers to inclusion are deep-rooted, both in the people we support and in the community.

Oftentimes, people with disabilities are afraid of new social situations because of past mistreatment and bullying. Some of the people we support have issues with impulse control or reactive behavior. Those issues can cause new people to distance themselves until they learn more about the individual. On the other end of the spectrum are well-meaning people who assume that everybody with a disability should be baby-talked, given crayons and paper, and treated like a preschool student. Given enough exposure to one another, people will almost always find comfort in common ground.

Direct support professionals must be tenacious. There will be hurdles, disappointment, and embarrassment, but those hurdles get shorter with each try. Giving up after a single lackluster trip to a coffehouse poetry reading is not allowing the natural course of inclusion to take place. Familiarity leads to comfort. When the supported person makes enough visits to the coffeehouse and the regulars at the coffeehouse see the supported individual enough times, acceptance is the logical result. Eventually the supported individual will gain a sense of belonging in the group, and the group will accept the individual as one of their own.

The easiest path is to take the people we support to activities specifically held for their particular diagnoses. It is less stress on the DSP, and there will be no odd looks from other people. Nobody will act strange during tube feeding or tracheal suctioning. After all, if you have a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, don't you naturally want to spend all your time with other people who have cerebral palsy? Of course not. That is like assuming a person with hemorrhoids wants to always be around others who have been diagnosed with hemorrhoids. People want to spend their time with other people who they are comfortable with, who make them laugh, share the same interests, and complement the personalities of one another.

When a DSP takes the path of least resistance, the people we support are cheated out of opportunities for inclusion and real meaningful relationships. Society is cheated out of a valued member of the community. By leaving the comfort zones of both the supported individual and the support professional, the circle of support is expanded and everybody benefits from the increased inclusion.

Don't do what is easiest. Do what is best.