Personal Safety Programs for
People with Special Needs
Some special needs stem from differences in the ways our bodies and minds work. Participants with visual or mobility impairment, deafness, or developmental delays receive training that is adapted to meet their needs.
Other needs stem from life situations such as a history of child sexual or physical assault, adult sexual or physical assault, homelessness, substance abuse, or domestic violence. These life situations can affect the way people perceive their power, their value, and their right to be safe. Our services address the special needs of people whose histories include challenges like these.
Many of the workshops offered in our Seasonal Public Workshop Schedule can be a good fit for participants living with special needs or having survived violence, whether they are a child, a teen or an adult. Contact us to find out more.
We can also create a tailor-made private workshop to satisfy the particular needs of a given group. Training for professionals, teaching kits and publications are available for social workers, educators and other professionals working with special needs groups.
WORKSHOPS FOR PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
"I lost my sight suddenly two years ago. Taking your workshop gave me back my belief in my own power. This is the first time since I went blind that I feel really good."
OUR FOCUS
We work with participants to identify their strengths and then to practice ways of using those strengths to help themselves stay safe.
Our workshops focus on :
- What students CAN do, not what they can't do
- Offering a safe, success-based environment for 'learning by doing'
- Providing role-play situations that explore familiar problems and give students the chance to practice preventing, de-escalating, stopping, or getting away from them
- Developing powerful skills without overwhelming students with scary stories or images
CONTENT
All workshops include experiential, step-by-step practice of skills such as:
- Being and acting aware, calm and confident
- Setting boundaries
- Staying safe from bullying or verbal attack
- Getting help
Participants also practice skills relevant to their own life situations, such as staying safe while riding public transit; making safe choices with support tools such as canes, service dogs, and wheelchairs, that require locking, in a potentially dangerous situation; or using effective physical self-defense skills without being able to see the target or while seated in a wheelchair.
"Your program is without question the most effective self defense training our students have ever participated in....To help others have the confidence to move in an urban--or any--environment without fear is a great gift."
-- Patricia C.Williams, Director, Living skills Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired
WORKSHOPS FOR PEOPLE LIVING WITH
OTHER LIFE CHALLENGES
"For survivors, FULLPOWER programs offer a way to take back their power on a physical level. For all of us, they offer a way to free ourselves from fear."
-- Ellen Bass, Co-Author of The Courage to Heal and Free Your Mind
OUR FOCUS
Child sexual assault, domestic violence, homelessness, or substance abuse can have lasting effects on the way people perceive themselves and their power. Our workshops create a context for developing a strong set of personal safety skills while recognizing how past experiences can affect anyone's process of looking at options and making choices.
Our goal is to provide our participants with tools to make choices and take action that will help them stay physically and emotionally safe in future situations while acknowledging, respecting, and honoring past choices and their reasons for making them.
Please consult the Families section or the Adults & Seniors section for more details on specific contents and skills sets for each age group.
"Some of the women in our emergency shelter have just left an abusive relationship, and their risk of injury and death is very high. 100% of the children we work with have been exposed to physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and/or neglect. KIDPOWER provides these mothers and children with the opportunity to hear the same healthy messages about how to be safe and also how they can take charge and get help if something doesn't feel okay. With KIDPOWER, our children have been able to learn how to identify people they can go to in order to get help and how to persist until they get the help they need."
-- Shawne Smith, Director of Client Services, Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence
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