PLAN Story: Our Friend James

By Brian Smith

This is the story of James whose incredible shift from his situation only five years ago was changed by the love of his grandmother and the persistence of a wonderful facilitator. His grandmother, Anna wanted to know that there would be friends around James when she was gone and James was frustrated that his own attempts at creating a network had not been effective.

There were successes and challenges James faced in his journey to find a network. Finding a facilitator who truly understands your interests and can support you in finding people you connect with takes time. In the first year they worked with a few facilitators looking for that person who truly saw James’ expressive and inquisitive nature. In the middle of James’ second year he met Marilyn. This was when the successes began to flow. Marilyn was excited to work with James and her enthusiasm for creating a network around him was what made their relationship and the network grow. She constantly found new ways of making connections with people.

The first connection James made was with Marilyn’s husband, Ken. James had studied history and anthropology in college and was very knowledgeable and interested in academic subjects. James and Ken enjoyed discussing chemical biology and as they got to know one another realized that they both loved Science Fiction. They exchanged books and began to go to films together. In that second year with Marilyn the network grew exponentially. James began developing friendships with more and more people. His network had grown to nine members. They went to movies, had lighthearted and enjoyable chats about the movies they saw as well as important social issues such as dating. He had created for himself a network of people who truly knew him.

James found a group of people who cared about him and he them. The greatest success for Anna was the peace of mind she gained by seeing the richness of James’ network.