Best Buddies

Best Buddies is much more than a school club, it is a life-altering program that delivers friendship, leadership, and inclusion for students both with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). It operates in high schools across the U.S. and across the globe. Best Buddies will end social isolation through one-to-one friendships between students of all abilities. 

In many schools, students with IDD often are lonely and therefore often are excluded. They are often not invited to join in table conversations at lunch or the classroom, engage with peers in group experiences, or be asked to join peers at school activities. Best Buddies is creating a new way of delivering friendship. Students with an IDD -called buddies- match with a peer buddy – students that do not have a disability- based on interests and personalities. Even though the friendship is based on a limited amount of time at school, offers of a friendship are made in the daily world of texting to hangout, be friends, meet at games, and best buddies events outside of school to look forward to.  

The friendships formed from Best Buddies chapters are credible, meaningful, and authentic. Most often students with IDD view having a peer buddy as a way to be included, valued, or accepted as a friend. The experience of developing a peer buddy provides students with IDD the confidence, opportunity to practice social skills and provide them with someone to confide in or have fun. Similarly, for the peer buddies, the friendship may mean more to them than it ever does to their buddy.

They learn empathy, develop a greater understanding of diversity, and often discover a passion for advocacy and inclusion that continues post high school. Each outstanding chapter is student-led with the support of a faculty advisor, and similarly to any other school club, they operate within their own guidelines. Officer positions are elected, they meet regularly, and they plan events through the school year. These events can be holiday themed parties, sports nights, community walks, dances, and are meant to be inclusive and fun for students to bond while creating a supportive community. Along with friendship, Best Buddies offers leadership opportunities, as well. Students can hold officer positions such as president, vice president, buddy director, and more. The student leaders plan activities, organize fundraisers, and represent their chapters at state or national conferences. Best Buddies promotes students, and individuals with IDD, to take on leadership roles, to be public speakers, and act as advocates of inclusion in their schools and communities. These programs connect them to a larger global initiative. Best Buddies International, created in 1989 by Anthony Kennedy Shriver, has programs in over 50 countries, serving hundreds of thousands of people. It includes school based programs as well as adult friendship programs, employment programs and inclusive living programs.