Dear Families,

We had a fantastic turnout at our first AIM Hangout of the year on Sunday, November 13th with close to 40 youth and 20 parents in attendance. It was wonderful to meet new so many new faces and reconnect with old friends!


Our youth participants had fun sharing their favorite ways to be active, including: tennis, swimming, volleyball, pretending to be a spy/detective, solo and group dance parties, and organizing!

We also learned new bodyweight exercises and created customized workout routines thanks to the amazing Emily LaMarca- long-time MDSC member, parent, Falmouth Road Race & Boston Marathon runner, and Director of Empowered Through Health, a nonprofit based in Central MA whose mission is to create an environment of inclusion and celebration of people with different abilities through various health and wellness programs. 

If you're looking to keep your body moving over the holidays and the winter season, check out the alphabet of bodyweight exercises and spell out a different word/name each day! Here are some fun calendar pages for November and December to keep track of your workouts. 

The AIM Parent group was visited by speaker Cheryl Ryan Chan who presented on Person-Centered Planning. Please see below for some resources related to this very important topic.

We hope you can join us for our next AIM Hangout on Sunday, December 11th at the Newton YMCA from 12:30-3:30 for Master Chef, AIM Edition! Two teams will compete to create delicious holiday-themed treats-everyone is a winner! Please RSVP by December 7th.

Wishing you and your families a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!
The AIM Team
Colleen, Kristen and Cathy

AIM logo
*AIM welcomes new members throughout the year! Please email [email protected] to learn more about this year's program and how to register.


Person-Centered Planning

Person Centered Planning is a helpful tool to use during transition to focus on the dreams and goals that the individual transitioning has so that the appropriate supports can be put in place to realize those dreams and goals.

Traditional Planning v. Person-Centered Planning
Comparison Table from Think College!

Whether you've known about Person-Centered Planning for a while or this is your first time hearing about it, this parent brief published by the National Center on Secondary Education and Transition (NCSET) and the PACER Center provides some in-depth information about the transition planning process and helpful action steps to get you started.

Please also check out It's My Choice, a Person-Centered Planning guide geared towards self-advocates and containing discussion prompts to help youth, families and other support persons start talking about the life the individual wants to lead and how to get there. 

Do you have Person-Centered Planning resources, information and/or experiences you can share?
Things that you have found helpful/went well v. things that haven't been helpful/didn't go well?  We would love to hear from you so that we can add to our resources and distribute information to all MDSC families going through the transition process. Please email [email protected] to send resources, links, stories, etc.  THANK YOU!

Thank you to our National Anthem singers at Sunday's MDSC All Stars v. Boston Bruins Alumni Game!
L to R: James Hintlian, Matthew Cullen, Daniel Kinchla, Leah Toronto, Alexis Sokoloff, Natalie Lyons, Stephen Roller

Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress | www.mdsc.org | 781-221-0024