Summary
The Skills Society is a non-profit organization in Alberta that supports individuals with disabilities and their families, helping strengthen their sense of belonging and opportunities to grow in the community. Through The Belonging Project, Skills Society collaborated with the University of Alberta to explore how belonging shows up in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, and what conditions and actions help them feel like they belong.
This participatory and inclusive research produced three plain language summary reports. The reports describe:
- the meaning of belonging and inclusion
- how belonging looks like from the perspective of people with intellectual disabilities
- what practices service providers can adopt to support belonging.
Policy & Practice Implications
- The summary reports give service providers a deeper understanding of how to engage with people with intellectual disabilities in inclusive and safe ways.
- Service providers can use the recommended actions to strengthen belonging in their service delivery and advocacy.
- Policy makers can use the knowledge and recommendations in the summary reports to design programs and policies that promote belonging and provide better ways to measure outcomes.
Image source: https://www.skillssociety.ca/projects/the-belonging-project