Social Supports for students.
These supports may come from your friends, family, groups and community members. As long as they are providing the supports that are needed. Take the time to review what social supports that your student or child has and/or may need.
Types of Social Supports:
Emotional support, helping manage feelings like stress, anger, depression.
Tangible support helps with practical issues like financial assistance, providing a ride to school and help with food, clothes, shoes etc...
Informational support helps to provide information that will help solve our problems or overcome the challenge.
Special needs support helped to fulfill basic social needs like love, belonging and connectedness.
Building social support:
Attend to an existing relationship, reaching out to friends and family and make them a priority to maintain the most important relationships.
Increase community involvement, like taking part in the hobbies, volunteering or religious groups.
Attend support groups to get in touch with others who are dealing with similar problems or life experiences.
Professional supports such as doctors, therapists, social workers, and other professionals that can help you solve problems that may be more complicated.
Communicate with your student or child:
List three people or groups from communities that provide you with social support.
Describe how each of your supports helps you, or could help you, with emotional, tangible, informational and or social needs.
List any barriers that prevent you from fully utilizing each of your supports.
How could you support help you with a current problem?
Please feel free to have this conversation regularly to keep supports up to date.
