What Are Community Participation Supports?
Community participation supports help people with intellectual disabilities and autism spend their time in the community doing things that matter to them — and, critically, build ongoing relationships while doing it.
The distinction that matters here is between being in the community and being part of the community. A group of six people driven to a mall on a Tuesday afternoon is technically community access. But if nobody there knows their names, if they leave with no new relationship, and if the outing is identical next week regardless of who is in the van, it is not community participation. It is just a different room.
Our approach starts from the opposite direction: what does this specific person care about, who is already there, and how do we help them become a regular?
The measure of good community support is not how many outings happened. It is whether, six months later, there is someone in the community who notices when the person does not show up.
Who Community Participation Supports Are For
Adults with IDD
Adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities who want more connection than their current routine provides.
Autistic Adults
Individuals on the spectrum who want community involvement structured in a way that respects sensory and social needs.
Recent Graduates
Young adults who left school-based programming and lost the built-in social structure that came with it.
Socially Isolated Adults
People whose week has narrowed to home, appointments, and immediate family.
People Seeking Roles
Individuals who want to contribute — through volunteering, membership, faith communities, or interest groups.
Families Seeking Balance
Households where one caregiver has become the person's entire social world.
What Community Participation Support Looks Like
Support is delivered one-to-one or in very small groups, and is built entirely around the individual's interests, goals, and pace.
How We Approach Community Building
We start with discovery, not a schedule
Before recommending anything, we spend time learning what the person actually enjoys — including from people who have known them longest. Preferences are often buried under years of programming built around staffing convenience rather than interest.
We favor depth over variety
Going to the same place weekly builds relationships. Going somewhere different every day builds nothing. We would rather someone become a familiar face at one library, one gym, and one congregation than sample twenty venues.
We build toward natural supports
The goal is for paid staff to become less necessary over time, not more. When a gym staffer greets someone by name, when a volunteer coordinator saves them a task, when another regular sits with them — those relationships outlast any service authorization.
We respect sensory and social differences
Community participation should not require an autistic person to mask constantly to be welcome. We look for environments that fit, and we adjust timing, duration, and setting to make participation sustainable rather than exhausting.
How the Process Works
Intake and Goals
We talk with the individual and their team about what a good week would look like and what is missing right now.
Discovery
We spend time learning interests, strengths, sensory needs, and social preferences in real settings rather than through a checklist.
Community Mapping
We identify specific local settings, groups, and organizations that align with those interests and are realistically accessible.
Introduction and Support
We accompany the person as they begin participating, providing whatever level of support is needed to make it work.
Relationship Building
We deliberately facilitate connections with the people already in that setting rather than positioning ourselves as the person's only companion.
Fading Support
As natural supports strengthen and confidence grows, we step back gradually and intentionally.
Review and Expansion
We revisit goals with the team, adjust what is not working, and expand into new areas when the person is ready.
Funding and Eligibility in Pennsylvania
Community participation support is a defined service within Pennsylvania's home and community-based services system administered by the Office of Developmental Programs. Individuals enrolled in an ODP waiver commonly have this service available in their Individual Support Plan.
If you have a Supports Coordinator, ask them about community participation support hours in the ISP. If you are not currently enrolled in services, we can help you understand where to start with your county administrative entity.
Why Families Choose We Care for Community Supports
The honest reason many families come to us is that they have experienced community support that was really just supervised outings. The van showed up, the day passed, nothing accumulated.
We hire and train for a different job. Our direct support professionals are coached to think like connectors — to notice who else is in the room, to introduce people, to step back at the right moment, and to treat their own presence as scaffolding rather than the point.
That work is slower and harder to photograph than a trip to the aquarium. It is also the only version of community support that leaves something behind when the funding changes.