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Is your school inclusive?

Paula Kluth explains here what the characteristics of inclusive schools are. This article can be useful for those parents who are trying to choose a school where inclusion is really welcomed and where their son or daughter will be really included.

Creating Circles of Friends. A peer support and inclusion workbook

This book shows how building a child's circle of friends can increase their sense of belonging whilst reducing the incidence of disruption. The approach contributes to improved classroom performance and strengthens friendships, personal relationships and growth.

Circle of Friends

Circle of Friends is an approach to enhancing the inclusion, in a mainstream setting, of any young person who is experiencing difficulties in school because of a disability, personal crisis or because of their behaviour towards others.

Living Stories: Personal stories of how people with intellectual disability live.

Life stories as told by people with a disability or their family members.

The "All Our Own" Project: A Fieldbook for Developing Microboards.

A Delaware (USA) project assisting in the establishment of microboards. The project provides a "how to guide" for estabilishing a microboard and includes a collection of real life experiences.

"Self Direction" in Services and the Emerging Safeguarding and Advocacy Challenges that may arise

The term self-directed services can be misleading as there are a variety of distinctions in services. Kendrick writes that these services should be given closer scrutiny as to their advantages and disadvantages regardless of what model of self-direction is employed.

The Many Ways that Service Users and Families Can Help Improve the Workforce

Michael Kendrick outlines reasons why those people who use a service have better insight into whether the service performs.

Community and Rights

Minority groups are more likely to assert their rights when seeking to address injustices. Kendrick briefly examines the origins of natural justice and explains that the response to a rights argument is not always successful or the argument respected.

Creating the Right Conditions for "Thriving"; The place of a specific ecology for personalized initiatives for "small" people

Kendrick outlines the "ecology of thriving" as finding the environment that best suits a person's ability to thrive and flourish - "person centered". He writes that it is difficult to create person centered solutions and goals for organizations that have historically been far from individualized in their workings.

Why should schools include children with a disability?

In this article Dr Bob Jackson outlines 10 reasons why it is essential, and beneficial to all, to include children with disabilities in mainstream classrooms.