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1. Knowledge Database
• Slide Presentation for the lecture of: Connie Laurin-Bowie
Inclusion International, Canada
• Topic of lecture: Inclusive Communities Are Stronger
Communities: How Offering Choice, Support and Inclusion to
People with Intellectual Disabilities Builds Stronger
Communities for All
• The lecture was given at Beit Issie Shapiro’s 6th International
Conference on Disabilities - Israel
• Year: 2015

2. The Right to Live
Independently and be
Included in the Community
Unity and Diversity in Action
Tel Aviv
Connie Laurin-Bowie
Executive Director

4. Inclusion International is a global federation of family-
based organizations advocating for the human rights of
people with intellectual disabilities worldwide.
For over forty years Inclusion
International has been committed to the
promotion of these human rights and
our organization now represents over
200 member federations in 115 countries
throughout five regions including the
Middle East and North Africa, Europe,
Africa and the Indian Ocean, the
Americas, and Asia Pacific.

6. – influencing global processes and ensure global efforts are
responsive to the needs of families and self-advocates.
The knowledge and expertise of our members is the Global
Voice of people with intellectual disabilities and their
families.
– Connecting members and partners on key issues facing
people with intellectual disabilities and their families. By
providing opportunities for collaboration and engagement,
II acts as a hub of learning and innovation.
– Providing direct support to members in their work by:
• Equipping them with skills and knowledge to influence change
• Capacity building
• Technical support in the implementation of inclusion
Our Role
GLOBAL
VOICE
NETWORK
SUPPORT
TO OUR
MEMBERS

7. Convention on The Rights of
Persons with Disabilities

8. Inclusion International
Priorities
 Recognition of Families
 Inclusive Education
 Legal Capacity
 Living in the Community

9. Informed by Self Advocates

10. Informed by Families

12. Purpose of the Global
Campaign
 To ensure that the voice of self-
advocates and families is heard in
defining what it means to be included
(and how Article 19 is interpreted)
 To raise awareness of the exclusion and
isolation that people with intellectual
disabilities and their families continue
to face
 To identify the necessary conditions for
achieving inclusion in the community
 To share strategies for change

13. CRPD Article 19
 Provides a framework or looking at
what living and being included in the
community means.
 Was negotiated/designed by people
with intellectual disabilities and
families
 Is a tool for working with
governments, law and policy makers

14. Is about Choice…
“Persons with disabilities have the
opportunity to choose their place
of residence and where and with
whom they live on an equal basis
with others and are not obliged to
live in a particular living
arrangement;”

15. Choice means..
 Having opportunity and options
 Understanding decision making
 Empowerment
 Supports to make decisions
 innovation

16. Is about Support…
 “Persons with disabilities have
access to a range of in-home,
residential and other community
supports including personal
assistance necessary to support
living and inclusion in the
community, and to prevent
isolation or segregation from the
community;”

17. Support means…
To Individuals:
 Services (attendant care, employment
support, disability specific services)
 income support/disability benefits/tax credits
 Personal support by family, friends, community
To Families:
 Planning and information services
 Compensation for Income loss and disability costs
 Respite

18. Is about Inclusion
 “Community Services and
facilities fort he general
population are available on an
equal basis to persons with
disabilities to persons with
disabilities and are responsive to
their needs.”

19. Inclusion means…
 Inclusive education
 Employment opportunities and
support
 Access to Justice
 Equal access to health care
 Transportation
 Recreation and social

21. Key Findings
 People with intellectual disabilities have no
voice or control in the decisions about
where and with whom they live
 The vast majority of adults with
intellectual disabilities live at home with
their families
 But institutions continue to be a major
human rights violation and there is
evidence in some regions that the
admission of children is increasing and
that new forms of institutions are being
created.

22.  The major source of support and care which they
receive is from their families
 Families receive little or no support from
communities or governments
 Even when people with intellectual disabilities live
in the community they are often isolated and
excluded from the community
 This is because service continue to be delivered
in segregated and institutional systems and
because communities fail to organize systems to
be inclusive (education, health, transportation,
political processes, cultural and religious groups
employment etc.)

23. Implications for Public Policy and
the Role of Family Based
Organizations
Choice
 Legislative/policy reform
 Development of SDM Models
 Funding of both supply and demand side
Support
 Family Friendly public policy
 Supports to the Individual AND supports the
family
Inclusion
 Education/employment/health/other

24. Lessons from
Deinstitutionalization
 Take out the hardest to serve FIRST
 The Transition process has costs
 Not about moving services from one
location to another

29. For More Information:
www.inclusion-international.org