CommuniKeys Participation Partners
Help Create More Places to Participate
CommuniKeys works with businesses, educators, artists, recreation providers, community organizations, and volunteers to create accessible, adult-centered experiences throughout Northern Colorado.
Participation Partners help adults enter real community environments, return to familiar places, develop relationships, contribute their abilities, and become more fully included in community life.
Partnerships can be simple, flexible, and shaped around the strengths, space, skills, or resources each partner has to offer.
Experience Hosts
Experience Hosts welcome a small CommuniKeys group into a business, organization, studio, recreation space, farm, or community setting.
Hosts help create opportunities for adults to explore an environment, practice participation, build familiarity, and return as recognized members of the community.
Program Collaborators
Program Collaborators share knowledge, instruction, equipment, professional expertise, or practical skills.
Collaborations may support gardening, cooking, recreation, arts, community mobility, outdoor learning, movement, safety, employment exploration, or other meaningful areas of adult participation.
Community Event Partners
Community Event Partners work with CommuniKeys to make public events more welcoming and accessible.
Support may include sensory considerations, communication access, quieter areas, participation planning, event information, or other practical improvements that help more adults take part.
Learning Environment Partners
Learning Environment Partners create opportunities for repeated practice in real places.
Repeated access allows adults to build familiarity, strengthen skills, communicate preferences, develop relationships, and participate with greater confidence over time.
Sponsorship Partners
Sponsorship Partners help cover the cost of adaptive equipment, program materials, staff support, accessible experiences, participation assistance, and community events.
Sponsorships may support a specific experience, program area, equipment need, or broader access initiative.
Community Volunteers
Community Volunteers contribute time, skills, creativity, and practical support alongside CommuniKeys staff, participants, families, and partners.
Volunteer opportunities may include event preparation, hospitality, activity support, gardening and property projects, fundraising, professional expertise, creative work, or administrative assistance.
Volunteer roles depend on current needs, staff capacity, screening requirements, and participant access considerations.
DriveWays
DriveWays, led by Occupational Therapist and Certified Driving Rehabilitation Specialist Heather Ackart, helps individuals develop confidence navigating transportation environments. Through mobility education and adaptive driving expertise, DriveWays supports people with diverse neurological and sensory needs as they build independence in their communities.
Loveland Youth Gardeners
Loveland Youth Gardeners (LYG) empowers youth facing challenges to build life and work skills, environmental stewardship, and a spirit of community service, because everyone deserves to thrive.
Founded in 1996, LYG uses hands-on gardening and agriculture as a tool for youth development, helping participants cultivate responsibility, confidence, and connection. Now serving children and youth ages 3–21, LYG offers programs spanning early education, leadership, and vocational training. Youth grow food, care for animals and pollinators, and engage in environmental learning while donating or selling produce. This responsibility-based, nature-centered model fosters resilience, teamwork, and self-reliance, preparing young people to succeed in work and life.
Temple Grandin Equine Center at Colorado State University
CommuniKeys is developing a partnership with the Temple Grandin Equine Center at Colorado State University to create structured, scaffolded orientation and participation opportunities for non-speaking autistic adults in an equine environment.
This partnership supports gradual exposure, sensory accessibility, communication access, responsibility, routine, and meaningful engagement. Students are introduced to the barn environment through supported orientation experiences that help determine comfort, readiness, and future participation pathways.
The goal is not a one-time visit. CommuniKeys is working toward a thoughtful participation model where students can build confidence, understand expectations, engage with the environment, and participate with dignity over time.
National Sports Center for the Disabled
CommuniKeys is partnering with the National Sports Center for the Disabled to expand adaptive cycling and outdoor recreation opportunities for non-speaking autistic adults and their families.
Through this partnership, students are introduced to adaptive bikes, supported movement, comfort-building, mobility readiness, and outdoor participation in a structured and accessible way. These experiences help CommuniKeys better understand individual equipment needs, confidence levels, sensory considerations, and future pathways for biking and community mobility.
This work supports a broader CommuniKeys mobility pathway focused on purposeful movement, community access, confidence, safety, and belonging.
CONTACT US
Interested in partnering with CommuniKeys?
CommuniKeys is actively building partnerships across Northern Colorado with organizations, businesses, educators, recreation providers, and community leaders who want to help create meaningful participation opportunities for non-speaking autistic adults.
We welcome conversations about hosted experiences, recurring learning opportunities, community events, adaptive recreation, sponsorship, and program collaboration.
Together, we can build more accessible pathways for communication, participation, and belonging.