Wonderfully Made

Programs: Friendship club is a program for middle school and high school age kids with varying special needs. The goal of this program is to be a safe place for the kids involved to have fun, make friends, and work on social skills. We do this by having once a month friday night events in the community such as laser tag, movie nights, bowling, costume parties, and more. We also utilize peer volunteers to help create an inclusive atmosphere as well as help to educate and break down stereotypes that unfortunately exist for the kids involved in this program. We also organize events that are inclusive in the community and with the help of peer volunteers, we are able to provide respite to parents on these friday evenings as they just drop off and pick up their child. This program utilizes the most volunteers of any program we do and we specifically utilize volunteers who are high school & college age so that true peer interaction can be facilitated rather than adult-child facilitation. We do not write specific recreational therapy goals for this program, but rather provide recreational pursuits for the kids involved which facilitate an environment that lends itself to friendship building, social interaction skills, peer play, conversational skills, and confidence building. This program utilized 100 volunteers in 2017 and served 115 middle school & high school age kids with varying diagnoses such as: autism, down syndrome, adhd, phelan macdermot syndrome, depression, rad, spd, and anxiety.

focus groups are an after-school program designed to provide a small group environment for kids with special needs ages 5-18 to work on varying social, emotional, and behavioral goals through individualized recreational therapy program plans tailored to their needs. Focus groups are made up of 3-4 kids and meet every week on the alloted time for a 10-12 week session. Kids are placed in these groups after doing an assessment with a recreational therapist who then writes specific social skill and emotional skill goals for each child. What makes these groups unique is the small group environment where they are working on social and emotional skills with peers; so, while the groups are facilitated by a recreational therapist the goal is for these skills to be practiced amongst peers rather than one-on-one with an adult. These social skills interventions are specific to the child's needs and can focus on things such as: coping skills, interpersonal skills, leadership, team work, self-expression, and more. Kids with varying special needs sometimes just need a little extra education and support with social skills to be able to gain confidence in themselves and those skills. We believe instilling value in these skills sets kids up for success in the real world as they make friends, interact with peers, get a job interview, and more. By utilizing recreational therapy interventions we are able to provide a fun and safe peer group for the students involved to form friendships, work on social skills, gain confidence in themselves and these skills so that they carry over to other social situations outside of group. These services follow a standardized process of assessment, program planning, implementation, and evaluation by a ctrs (certified therapeutic recreation specialist). This program typically has 20 kids per session divided into 4-5 small after school groups which are run by one therapist. There are three sessions per year and we have had a waiting list to get into these groups since the beginning of 2017, but need more therapists to make that happen. A majority of our referrals come from psychologists in the city of lincoln who feel this is the next best step for young adults they are working on social/emotional skills with who need to work on them with peers rather than one-on-one with an adult. We also get referrals from schools and parents by word of mouth from other kids being in the program. A majority of the kids in this program have a primary diagnosis of autism, which isn't the target population, but the program is well suited to their needs so we tend to see that diagnosis make up a majority of the kids we see along with down syndrome as well as many secondary diagnoses such as adhd, anxiety, depression, rad, spd, fas, and/or behavioral needs. This program takes up a majority of our recreational therapist's time aside from executive director obligations and also a large amount of funding as each session 75-80% of the kids involved are on some sort of scholarship or full grant from us to receive services at a discount or no cost to them.