Summer Friends is open weekdays June 3 - 28 & July 8 -19, 2024. The cost is $420.00 per week. Summer Friends focuses on social skills training, peer support, community service, health and fitness, therapeutic activities and planning for an independent future and includes programming such as:

Health/Fitness: Adaptive Yoga and Adaptive Fitness classes taught by certified instructors, focusing on cardio, strength training, and flexibility.

Therapeutic: Music Therapy and Art Therapy led by certified and licensed therapists.

Community Activities: Visiting local stores, libraries, parks, and doing volunteer work at various locations in the community.

Social/Life Skills: Healthy lifestyle choices, stranger danger and pedestrian safety discussions, technology lessons, budgeting and financial skill development, dental hygiene and self-care practice, social skills development, staying up-to-date with current news on CNN Student News: News of the Day meetings.

Financial Assistance NOT Available

Participants bring their lunch each day.

The program offers participants a fun place to go and be with friends, while giving parents an alternative to staying home or finding in-home care. It also introduces the Therapeutic Day Program as a potential long-term solution for their children once they age out of the school system.

Summer Friends Participants must

- Be 16-21 years old
- Be ambulatory
- Be continent
- Show evidence of psychological maturity and stability
- Be able to manage their medication as well as other health-related issues (stomach ache, headache, etc.)
- Be willing to participate in Great Prospects activities and capable of participating in an active program
- Be able to communicate their wishes, thoughts, and needs either verbally, manually or through assistive technology
- Be able to understand and accept consequences
- Display sufficient maturity and self-control to effectively participate in a group activity
- Be able to participate in a program in with a staff to client ratio of 1:6 (no 1:1 support)
- Does not display any severe behavioral issues, including aggressive behaviors towards self or others, sexual behaviors towards self or others, or elopement (wandering/running away from the group)