The focus of last week’s meeting was building your congregation’s Inclusion Committee. The meeting featured two outstanding speakers and a brief presentation about what IDN has learned over 10+ years of supporting congregations on their journey’s toward full-inclusion of people with disabilities and their families.
The meeting was kicked off by a presentation from Dennis Kelly. Dennis work’s for Catholic Construction and Chairs the Inclusion Committee at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Lilburn, GA. Below check out some photos from their amazing renovation:
The renovation started with a commitment from the priest-in-charge to build the most accessible facility they could dream. People with a diversity of abilities and disabilities were consulted all along the process. There were a number of places where the church exceeded the ADA code or where the took the experiences of end-users with disabilities as the guide.
The result was a wonderfully accessible facility!
The priest-in-charge then brought together an inclusion committee. The charge to the committee was to use the parish’s accessibility as a platform to think about full-inclusion in the life of the parish
During the next part of the meeting Mark Crenshaw briefly presented a PowerPoint that featured what IDN has learned about supporting congregations on their journey’s toward full-inclusion:
The meeting ended with Dr. Durley telling his own story of beinf labeled with a disability and therefore being put into a “box.” He then spoke about his church’s call to be accessible and welcoming to people with disabilities.
He ended by calling attendees to build the next civil rights movement to build a more just world for people with disabilities and their families!
IDN is grateful to Dr. Durley and Providence Missionary Baptist Church, to Dennis Kelly and St. Joh Neumann Catholic Church and to all of the advocates and self advocates who are building this movement together!
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:
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)
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.
Thank you to those of you who are actively helping to build this movement of congregations that are accessible to and inclusive of people with disabilities and their families!
IDN gathered yesterday with two wonderfully diverse group of people with and without disability to learn from each other about the keys to hospitality and inclusion.
We watched this video:
We then discussed the question: How do you know when you’re included?
The discussion was lively and engaging! Some of the responses included:
When I am listened to
When I am called by name
When I am asked to participate
When I am made to feel like my perspective is important
When I am spoken to appropriately
When I am invited to share my gifts and talents
Attendees then went on to discuss victories and challenges that they have experienced in the houses of worship related to their communities’ journey toward full-inclusion of people with disabilities and their families.
Khayriyyah Faiz made an insightful presentation about the guiding principles that are used at The Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam when hospitality hosts and hostesses are trained. Attendees responded by saying that if a host/hostess lived those principles then everyon would feel welcome in the community. The other interesting discover among participants was that the principles of hospitality are universal. The practices of hospitality cross religious lines. as well as, disability/ temporairily-able bodied categories.
Thank you to Sister Khayriyyah for sharing out of her congregation’s experience!
The Advisory Committee also spent some time discussing topics for disability awareness that they would like to see included in future training. These trainings will be integrated into future meeting so that members can strengthen their understanding and ability to advocate for the full-inclusion of people with all types of disabilities. Some ideas included:
Training and information sharing about intellectual/cognitive disabilities
Sharing ideas about the ways people with disabilities are already working in congregation as a way of learning from everyone’s experience and creating more opportunities in all of the congregations represented
Training about fully-incorporating members with mental illness in our congregations
Exploring common threads and experiences across diverse cultures
Here is a copy of the PowerPoint from yesterday’s meeting:
Thank you to IDN Advisory Committee Co-Chairs Betty Hasan-Amin and Pat Kahn for their leadership. Also, a huge word of thanks to Imamm Furqan Muhammad and the community at Masjid Al Mu’Minun for hosting us yesterday!
If you weren’t able to attend yesterday you were missed! If you did attend thank you for your time, your voice and your experience!
Do you want to help your congregation become a place where all of God’s people are welcome. Leave a comment with your contact information or send a message to Mark Crenshaw
