Do you want to start a business for people with special needs? If YES, here are 50 best business ideas & opportunities targeted at people with special needs.
Special needs is a term used to describe individuals who require assistance for disabilities that may include medical, mental, or psychological.
Disabilities come in various types and they include physical (Such as muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, chronic asthma, and epilepsy), developmental (Such as Down syndrome, autism, dyslexia, and processing disorders) and behavioral (Such as ADHD, bipolar disorder, or oppositional defiance disorder).
More than 41 million Americans, or almost 15% of the population aged 5 and older, have some type of disability; according to 2007 Census survey data. Some 6.2% of children aged 5 to 15, or 2.8 million kids, have disabilities, the Census Bureau found.
Offering products and services for disabled consumers can be a challenging undertaking, but more and more companies have launched initiatives along those lines. If you want to start a business that is aimed at people with special needs, here are a few businesses you can start looking into.
Best Business ideas for People With Special Needs
1. Special Needs Coaching Business
Parents of special needs children work tirelessly to ensure their children lead happy and fulfilling lives. They scour the world, often looking for education and support that just isn’t there. A Special Needs Coach offers life coaching services to children and young adults with developmental disabilities.
They impact these children’s lives, focusing on each individual’s needs, whether it be academic, career, or relationship-building.
Many also work with parents of special needs children in order to help them better understand their child’s disability and to work through the parenting challenge. This is one basic business that is aimed at people with disabilities.
2. Train guard dogs
People who have various disabilities are often left vulnerable and as such need the protection of guard dogs. Guard dog businesses are becoming very popular, especially in urban areas where nighttime burglary is on the rise. Business owners train guard dogs to protect the property of customers during all hours.
Guard dogs can be rented or sold to companies or individuals with disabilities that require protection. There are a few different approaches that can be taken when starting a guard dog security service.
The first approach is to supply guard dogs with security handlers, the second is to provide guard dogs without security handlers, or both options can be offered to clients.
The requirements for starting the business are obvious. You must have trained guard dogs and experience training guard dogs, as well as a suitable operating location.
3. Make disability aids
Mobility aids are devices designed to help people who have problems moving around enjoy greater freedom and independence.
Typically people who have disabilities or injuries, or older adults who are at increased risk of falling, choose to use mobility aids.
These devices provide several benefits to users, including more independence, reduced pain, and increased confidence and self-esteem.
A range of mobility devices is available to meet people’s needs – from canes and crutches to wheelchairs and stair lifts. This is another business idea that is targeted at people with special needs.
4. Make Assistive disability aids
Assistive devices are external devices that are designed, made, or adapted to assist a person to perform a particular task.
Many people with disabilities depend on assistive devices to enable them to carry out daily activities and participate actively and productively in community life. You can make good profits when you open up a business that makes and sells assistive aids.
5. Create helpful disability apps
Navigating the world with disabilities, mental illnesses or physical illnesses can be very challenging. The more that we can do to alleviate stresses and encourage inclusion, the better.
In today’s technological world, there are a lot of apps which are helping to break down barriers, and in turn allow people to live more comfortably and independently. If you have such kind of skills, you can start creating apps that help the disabled in one way or the other.
6. Print braille and other reading materials for the blind
It is a fact that the bind have their own special reading materials, and that is why a braille printing business is a good business that is targeted at the disabled community.
You can open a business where you can start printing materials that are targeted at the blind, visually impaired or reading impaired.
This business can be a bit capital intensive as the price of a braille printer is directly related to the volume of braille it produces.
Small-volume braille printers cost between $1,800 and $5,000 and large-volume ones may cost between $10,000 and $80,000. But you can start small and grow your business from there.
7. Develop adaptive clothing designed for people with special disabilities
People have various forms of disabilities, and most times these disabilities make it difficult for them to easily wear conventional everyday clothing. You can start up a business that offers you the opportunity to make clothing specially designed for people with disabilities.
Adaptive clothing typically offers rear-closure designs so that an individual can be dressed more easily by a carer or even by themselves.
For example, rather than buttons and zippers, hidden magnets or Velcro may be used for garment and footwear closures. You can also create jeans that fit over prosthetic legs to shirts with easy-open necklines. This is another business targeted at people with disabilities.
8. Halloween costumes for the disabled
Everyone deserves to bask in the fun of a special moment as far as Halloween is concerned. But sadly, the disabled can sometimes not find anything that can suit their situation when it comes to Halloween parties. You can start creating a business that offers a line of adaptive Halloween costumes designed for people with a range of physical disabilities.
You can create costumes that have features such as hidden access panels for catheters, for example, and openings in the back for wheelchair access.
You can also create costume elements that incorporate wheelchairs into the costume itself, including a pirate ship and a princess carriage.
Data shows that the market for adaptive clothing is growing rapidly. Coresight Research estimated that the U.S. adaptive clothing market would reach $44.5 billion in 2018 and grow to $51.8 billion by 2022. Globally, the market is projected to grow nearly 20% to $325.8 billion. This does to show that this is the right time to get into this industry.
9. Special needs adult day care
Dealing with special-needs adults — those who have dementia, Parkinson’s disease, strokes or disabilities — can drain and exhaust their loved ones.
For this reason, their carers need help from time to time. Opening an adult day care is one way to give caretakers a breather; families can leave their parent or adult child with you for the day, which gives them a chance to work or relax.
A day care center for adults with special needs shouldn’t be confused with a day care center for seniors. Therefore it is important to know what the differences are when learning how to start a special-needs adult day care.
Although both adults with special needs and seniors sometimes require care to keep them safe, opportunities for socialization and activities to keep them stimulated, each group has different age-specific needs that may not be complementary.
10. Open a shop this is disability complaint
A smart business strives to appeal to as many customers as possible and customers with disabilities love to shop and spend money as much as ever other person.
There are over 48.9 million people living with a disability in the U.S. To draw in more people with disabilities to your shop, you should install things like tactile buttons at the checkout.
You should also make your aisles wide enough for wheelchairs and clutter-free; Teach employees to treat the disabled with respect; Install an automatic door button; Offer specialized help if needed; Give some extra time at checkout, etc.
Keeping all these measures in place would ensure you draw in more disabled clients, who would in turn spread the word about your functional store.
11. Supply reading materials in large print
Students with low vision will frequently need materials to be increased in size. If you want to help out by starting a business targeted at this niche, you can start printing reading materials like Text books, cookbooks, dictionaries in large print.
Large print reading materials are generally printed in 16 to 18 point size. Giant print is anything larger than this. Regular print is usually 10 or 12 point. You should be able to print materials in different point sizes to suit different needs.
12. Train service dogs
A service dog, as the term is used in the united states, refers to any dog trained to help a person who has a disability, such as visual impairment, hearing impairment, mental illness (like post-traumatic stress disorder), seizures, mobility impairment, and diabetes.
The right of service dogs in the US to accompany their owners everywhere their owners go is protected under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and parallel state and city laws, and significant monetary penalties have been assessed by courts against those who have sought to abridge those rights. If you want to start a business that is targeted at the disabled, you can start training service dogs.
13. Braille Transcription Business
Braille transcription involves translating printed text into braille for blind and low-vision readers. This is another lucrative business that is targeted at the disable.
Though becoming a braille transcriber does not require a degree, but braille transcribers can be certified for free through the Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
A braille transcriber determines how to most accurately present information from a print textbook into a braille version and then transcribes it into braille so that a student who is blind or has low vision gets the same benefits from the information as his or her sighted peers.
14. Become a Braillist
A Braillist is an expert at writing Braille. The average salary for a braillist ranges from approximately $42,231 per year for Career Advisor to $76,513 per year for Regional Manager.
A braillist also assists teachers with the preparation of classroom and teaching materials for visually impaired students; and assists with the instruction and supervision of students.
15. Become a physiotherapist
Physiotherapists help people affected by injury, illness or disability through movement and exercise, manual therapy, education and advice. They maintain health for people of all ages, helping patients to manage pain and prevent disease.
Starting and managing your own physical therapy practice may seem like something that is unattainable. After all, setting up shop and then maintaining a livable wage is no easy feat.
However, with the right physical therapy private practice business plan, you can have your very own physical therapy start-up clinic.