The IDN Advisory Committee had its 1st meeting of 2011 yesterday. IDN is continually grateful for the stories, experiences, wisdom and energy of the members of the committee. The committee is made up of people with disabilities as well as those who are temporarily able bodied. IDN wasnt to seeks to assist members of the Advisory Committee by offering resources and ideas that will help advocates help their congregations become places where the gifts, skills, and abilities of people with and without disabilities are engaged as full-members.

This post will be my attempt to share a synopsis of ideas and resources that were shared at the meeting. If you are reading this and would like to amend the list please feel free to add your thoughts, ideas and resources to the ones shared here.

Here are resources mentioned by speakers during the presentations yesterday:

Stacey Ramirez, Director of Individual and Family Supports, Center on Leadership and Disability,Georgia State University

Thanks to Stacey for coming to share about her passion around helping people with disabilities live their dreams and pursue their passions. She shared about a process called

Person Centered Planning that begins by asking the question,”What are you passionate about and how can we make sure you get to do that?

Credo for Support video

Waddie Welcome and The Beloved Community

Resources from Reverend Kim McGarr, Minister to People with Disabilities and Older Adults, Mount Bethel United Methodist Church:

I’m Tyler Video

Pat Kahn, Director of Religious Education at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta sent the following resources that she has found helpful in religious education with children with Autism and Pat also provided some resources that have proved helpful in educating her congregation about autism:

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
this is the book that really impacted me years ago–

http://www.williamstillman.com/ books and website
Especially his book Demystifying the Autistic Experience: A Humanistic Introduction for Parents, Caregivers and Educators

http://www.autismspeaks.org/ lots of good information
on the blog, there’s an announcement about a CDC workshop open to the public on Feb 1

http://www.templegrandin.com/ Thinking in Pictures, the movie and her TED talk (and I just ordered a copy of another book she wrote The Way I See It)

http://stanleygreenspan.com/ Stanley Greenspan
Engaging Autism and The Learning Tree (which I have not read yet but just ordered - didn’t realize that he had died)

http://www.marasapon-shevin.org/index.php Mara Sapon-Shevin
Because We Can Change the World and Widening the Circle

Thanks go also to The Reverend Benno Pattison sharing the parish hall at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany and for sharing his story about what his family has learned about life together because Benno has a daughter who lives with autism.

The National Dissemination Center for Children with disabilities provides fact sheets that offer information about specific disabilities, tips for families, tips for teachers and resources for further consideration. The link to the fact sheet about Autism is here.

IDN Provided a list of Autism resources. The majority of the resources are for the education of the community about autism. I will add some resources for curriculum later in this post as I get to the the resources that were shared by our presenters. The resource is below:

From IDN:
The Inclusive Church Blog: http://theinclusivechurch.wordpress.com/
This blog is written by Amy Fenton Lee and covers many topics related to beginning/maintaining a ministry with people with disabilities. The blog’s target audience is Christian churches.

Religion and Ethics News Weekly (July 2, 2009) http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/july-3-2009/faith-communities-and-disability/3440/
This episode features Christian, Jewish and Muslim Communities and their responses to people with disabilities in their midst. The episode specifically features a young Muslim boy who has Autism.The feature tells the story of the masjid and it’s welcome to the boy and his family.

Dr. Roy Sanders Dr. Sanders is the Medical Director at the Marcus Autism Center and a parent of a son with autism. This book provides the expertise of a medical professional and the practical strategies of a a person who has lived the experience of which he writes.
http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=life_fam_religion

Autism and Spirituality (revised April 2007) formerly: Information on Autism for Religious Education Teachers Following a brief historical overview, the article describes some common behavior patterns for people with autism as well as some tips for the religious education teacher. (5 pages plus resource listing) -Written by Charlotte Hawkins-Shepard Ph.D. -Copyright by General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. See link: http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/work/health/disc or contact: Charlotte Hawkins-Shepard Ph.D. at rwchshepard@yahoo.com”>

Are there other ideas or resources that you would add to the list? Please leave them in the comments section

The next meeting of the Advisory Committee will be held on Tuesday, April 12, 2011. Please watch this space and our Facebook Page and Twitter feed for more information.

Connect with IDN on Facebook and on Twitter

Check out the most recent episode of PBS’ Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. The episode features Reverend Bill Gaventa and people with disabilities and their families from Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations

I had an interesting and enlightening conversation with a college friend last week. This woman is a Christian Pastor, Mom and an Autism Advocate. She posted on Facebook about how she was convinced that in her experience of her son, who lives on the autism spectrum, she was becoming more and more convinced that autism was a cultural thing.

I asked her to say more about this and she talked about how she was convinced that her son spoke another “language”. My friend’s sense was that if she could just commit to learning the “language” she could better understand and support her son.

I had that conversation last week and then I came in this morning to find a link to this article from the New York Times in my inbox. I think the article offers some of the same insights.

I lead disability awareness training often and I think there are definitely elements of cultural competency involved.

What do you think? How much of disability awareness is cultural competency vs. teaching people with disabilities to operate appropriately within the culture of the communities where we seek to be connected?

â??My son is very fond of his junior church leader and she has done loads of little things to keep him included. Even though some of them donâ??t work, I am really heartened by her willingness to be creative and think of my son and want him to be happy in the group and to be able to contribute. He often is offered a musical instrument and is the person she asks to draw the curtains and switch off the lights. She accepts a certain level of noise from him and encourages me to contribute to the group overall. He often starts his prayers at night with thanking God for her. â?¦.It is helpful to have people who are willing to learn and understand and treat us both like human beings with feelings. Someone asked me for what they could do to make it easier for him when we went for a picnic together, and that individual approach really
helps.�

This is an example of one of the many quotes offered by people who live on the autism spectrum and their family members in Welcoming Those with Autism and Aspberger Syndrome In Our Churches And Communities. The document was published by the Anglican Diocese of Oxford.

One of the things that impresses me most about the document is the multiplicity of ways that the voices of people living on the Autism Spectrum show up in the document.

Please download the document and review it. I believe it presents may helpful tips for welcoming people on the Autism Spectrum and their families. Tips like:

The Order of service â?? really clear instructions for us e.g. where to sit, when to stand and sit, what to say at each point? Either write it down, or get someone to be with us to quietly say what to do, please. (This also helps those new to church). Different colour paper may help some to read service sheets, e.g. light blue paper rather than white.

What do you think?