Friendship Program

The Friendship Program, operated by Disability Services Queensland (DSQ) helps people with a disability and other community members form and maintain friendships. These friendships benefit everyone and help the community grow stronger.

Any person regardless of ability can be a friend. Through friendships, people contribute to the quality of each other’s lives and enjoy the feeling of being valued by another person.

Support can range from highly structured and resource intensive activities through to simply taking the time to ensure there are no artificial or unnecessary barriers between people with a disability and their friends. Support might include:

• Involving people with neighbours;
• Encouraging and facilitating people to join clubs and community groups;
• Identifying and expanding a person’s existing social networks;
• Building on existing acquaintances;
• Building individual capacity to be involved in friendships, eg. Decision making, budgeting, communication;
• Directly links a person with someone interested in forming a friendship; and
• Assisting people to make and keep arrangements

For more information on how you can be involved in the DSQ Friendship Support Program, call 1300 303 623 (toll free) or email: friends@disability.qld.gov.au

More information about the Friendship Program