People with disabilities or other special needs are at a higher risk for abuse, bullying, and exploitation. Kidpower Colorado is strongly committed to providing services that are accessible to children, teens, and adults with diverse physical, intellectual, developmental and neurological abilities.
Our workshops are tailored to the strengths of every student. We work in partnership with schools, agencies, and workplaces. We also often include parents, teachers, and service providers to focus on what students CAN do, rather than what they cannot.
Our expert blend of listening, teaching, adapting and success-based practice has proven to be highly effective building skills that people can use with confidence right way to be safer and to strengthen relationships of all kinds.
See research funded by The Colorado Trust documenting positive skill outcomes of the Personal Safety Project for special education students.
Kidpower International has additional resources for students with varying abilities including many captioned videos and practice guides in the free, self-paced Safety Powers Course, offered through the Kidpower Online Learning Center and designed to make our safety skills more accessible for people with communication challenges.
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Our Power to Adapt
We explore and build on what people CAN do – rather than focusing on what they cannot do. It is too easy to assume that a person is helpless as a result of something they may not be able to do.
Sometimes, people might already have a belief that they are helpless – and then act in ways that make them seem less capable than they truly are.
Sometimes, those who know them the best will underestimate their ability to understand and to learn – and are even surprised that their students can say “No” or “Stop” or “Help” appropriately.
We are particularly careful to avoid making assumptions based on our students’ behavior or appearance when we start. We begin working with what our students show that they are able to do.
Then, we build from there, adapting to make a skill work for a student rather than trying to force a student to fit a skill. At all times, we look for possibilities and growth rather than focusing on limitations.
Most Kidpower skills practices can be easily adapted. For example:
If our students can’t see: We talk them through what they will be doing instead of showing them visually, or we get their permission to move their bodies to help them understand. We use language like, “show that you notice by turning your head” rather than telling them to “look.” We focus on using their hearing to notice problems.
If our students have trouble talking: We work with whatever communication devices they have available. We practice how they can use cards that explain to others what the problem is. We work with all the ways of communicating available to them.
If our students use a wheelchair: We say to “sit tall” instead of “stand tall” and practice skills sitting down. We show and practice Roll Away Power from potential safety problems instead of Walk Away Power. If we are teaching self-defense, we show Wheelchair Power, where they can use their wheelchair as a weapon to escape from an attack.
If our students have trouble hearing: We work with their communication devices or sign language interpreters and focus on having them use their sight to notice trouble. We have them sign, use written captions, draw, or act out skills vividly without speaking.
If our students can’t move one part of their bodies: We show how using other parts of their bodies or even just their imaginations can make the skills work. For example, we have a one-handed Trash Can for waving away hurting words if a two-handed trash can won’t work. If Mouth Closed Power to stop yourself from being unsafe with your mouth won’t work because a student cannot close her or his mouth, then we change the name to “Mouth Safe” Power.
If our students have difficulty understanding concepts: We keep our language very simple. We show them pictures or act out demonstrations of very concrete examples in situations that are familiar to them.
If our students can’t move or speak: We have the people who help them practice the skills for them, just as they help to meet their other needs.
If our students have trouble being safe with their emotions: We teach them and their adults how to use Calm Down Power and other tools for managing their triggers.
To prepare people with skills to protect themselves and their loved ones from harassment, assault, and other threats in public, we teach self-protection strategies using examples and experiential role-plays relevant to the ages, abilities, and life situations of our students.
We have extensive experience adapting role-plays for a wide variety of situations people might face as pedestrians, patrons, or customers in stores, on sidewalks, and riding public transit – from crowded urban spaces to more isolated rural communities.
We adapt not only the skills themselves but also the ways we present the scenarios in order to make them accessible and clear. Skills include how to:
- Act aware, calm, and confident
- Make safety plans before going out
- Learn and apply Stranger Safety strategies
- Recognize and avoid the ‘Wishing Technique’
- Practice different ways to get help – and to persist
- Integrate access tools into personal safety plans and strategies
- Take charge of safety in the face of identity-based harassment and threats
- Use emergency-only physical self-defense skills as a last resort to escape danger and get to safety
- Make plans for dealing with, managing, and making safety-related decisions about personal items including transit passes, personal identification, devices, bags, wallets, money, food and drink, etc.
Many of our students – often those who are blind or partially sighted or who are smaller in stature than their peers – experience unwanted touch and attention from strangers in public. These strangers may actually believe they are being helpful – and lack awareness that their behavior is experienced as intrusive, disrespectful, and unsafe. This can include being touched, lifted, moved, or having personal items taken without their consent. To equip our students with strategies to take charge of their safety in these types of situations, we teach boundary-setting and advocacy skills – in addition to the skills listed above!
We have decades of experience adapting safety strategies so people can have options for using or adjusting canes, wheelchairs, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices, and other tools in ways that can help them take charge of safety.
Sometimes, we practice putting things down and letting them go. Sometimes, we practice special strategies that work well only with wheelchairs, not with feet. Sometimes, we practice different ways to carry devices, wallets, ID cards, and bags. Sometimes, we explore when speaking up with AAC may be most powerful – and when it might be safer and more powerful to move away without communicating anything more.
Every person’s situation is different, so we adapt in the moment to find what works best for them. We practice step-by-step, building on skills through success-based teaching and coaching so that students feel more prepared to assess options and make choices in scenarios that are relevant to their own lives.
A common concern for people of all ages is unwanted touch or attention directed at or involving their service animals or their access tools. This type of intrusive, unsafe behavior can include strangers or people they know:
- touching or moving the joysticks, buttons, or switches on their device or wheelchair
- removing access to a tool by taking it away or turning off its power
- tilting, pushing, or standing on their wheelchair
- threatening to take, break, or misuse an access tool
- directing unwanted attention toward their service animal
- making hurtful comments about them, their service animal, or the access tools they use
To empower people with strategies to face these situations with more confidence, we adapt and practice boundary setting, advocacy, emotional safety skills, and other techniques our students can use right away.
People of all ages and abilities need to know that they have the right to defend themselves from a violent assault – and the power to do so most of the time.
Kidpower teaches emergency-only physical self-defense techniques as a last resort to escape danger and get to safety. Depending on the workshop, physical self-defense skills we may introduce and adapt include:
- escaping from an arm grab
- using fingers, hands, and elbows to jab, hit, grab, or strike
- using upper leg, lower leg, and feet to strike or stomp
Adults, teens, and children tell us that the opportunity to practice physical self-defense techniques that work well for their own bodies helps them feel calmer and more confident. They often say that it helps them feel more confident using all the other skills we practice, too, since they have a safety plan for what they could try if a situation were to escalate.
Although someone in a real-life safety situation may choose to risk injury in order to get to safety, we put safety first in our courses and workshops. We create opportunities for students to practice using the power of their bodies in ways that are designed to be physically and emotionally safe. We work together, communicate, listen, and adapt for a wide variety of needs related to balance, mobility, vision, hearing, cognition, and health issues that may cause numbness, tremors, brittle bones, chronic pain, or other challenges.
Our oldest participant to date in one of our full-force physical self-defense workshops was a 96-year-old experiencing vision loss and in skills to feel safer and more confident riding public transit independently.
Our youngest students are six years old. We work with families to identify the best plan for building their own child’s safety skills. For many, this means introducing physical self-defense skills when children are older.
Kidpower helps parents, caregivers, and educators learn strategies for protecting children with the following risk factors of maltreatment:
- Having chronic disabilities that may overwhelm parents
- Not understanding what constitutes maltreatment and that they have the right to say “No”
- Limited communication skills that inhibit their ability to tell others that they have been abused
- Frequently dependent upon others to meet their basic needs
- May be considered to be unresponsive or overly responsive to affection
- Are expected to interact with a significant number of adults in a variety of contexts
- May not know how to recognize or protect themselves in a “risky” situation
- Are often socially isolated and frequently lonely
- Are not recognized to be at higher risk of maltreatment
- Are often not a “valued” member of the community
Kidpower core social-emotional safety skills help people of all ages and abilities take charge of safety and well-being – online and in person. Skills include how to:
- Act aware, calm, and confident
- Protect yourself emotionally from hurtful words or behavior
- Manage emotional triggers to stay in charge of what you say and do
- Recognize what is and is not safe
- Move away from trouble physically, emotionally, and digitally
- Assess – and think first or check first before acting
- Set powerful and respectful boundaries
- Apply safety principles about touch and attention in healthy relationships
- Advocate assertively and persistently for help with safety problems
- Use your voice and body to stop an attack and get to safety
We work with participants and their supporters to identify their strengths and then to work with those strengths to stay safe. Thousands of students with diverse physical, cognitive, developmental, and neurological abilities have found our resources, courses, and workshops to be relevant, interesting, and well-suited for their own ways of moving, thinking, perceiving, and communicating.
