Aspen Network Team-Living: Helping Young People With Social Differences Lead Fuller Lives

As parents of an adult son with Asperger’s syndrome, Dr. Meg Fields and her husband Michael Fields have always been active participants in their son’s emotional, social, and academic development. From the beginning they have met challenges head on, and over time their understanding and perspectives have evolved into a positive philosophy that inspired Aspen Network: an organization that offers programs for young adults with social concerns, anxiety disorders and social differences, including spectrum behaviors. Aspen Network’s vision is to create safe spaces in the world where young people can land softly, can be accepted for who they are right now, today, and can realize their potential to move forward in our world.

Tucked away in the Bay Area’s Lamorinda Hills is Aspen Network’s Team-Living PODs—year-round residential living environments where young people 18 years and older with social challenges and anxieties live alongside peers with similar challenges and together actively learn the skills necessary to launch into the world and build independent lives for themselves.

To accomplish meaningful goals, people in general need to exhibit acceptable behaviors and possess certain skills. But how can a person with social or learning challenges accomplish meaningful goals? Think about it: society offers Braille, sign language, hearing aids, wheelchairs, and wheelchair ramps, among many other accommodations. Aspen Network believes their young people require their own accommodations or “social-cognitive ramps”—whereby they are accommodated at a level similar to those who have physical disabilities or differences. They give them structures, accommodations, and peers of their own so that everyone gets to “come to the party” and lead more independent, purposeful lives.

Find out more about Aspen Network and their additional programs, including Summer Team Camp, July 2017: https://aspennetwork.net

Contact: info@AspenNetwork.net or Meg Fields, RN, Psy.D. at (925) 262-3135