How do we build communities that welcome people with disability as full citizens, not clients of services? In this episode, Ricky reads Ric Thompson’s paper Maximising Citizenship Through the Development of Welcoming Communities.
Written in the mid-1990s, the paper argues that as the human service system grew, communities learned that including people with disability was somebody else’s job. Ric draws on social capital, asset-based community development and his own work in North Queensland, including a 6am breakfast with the Mayor of Atherton and a gathering of Townsville church leaders who came simply because nobody had ever asked them before.
The paper sets out three foundation principles and ten practical strategies for community building, finishing with a challenge every disability and human services worker should hear: start asking, then let go.
Relevant for support workers, employment consultants, families, educators and anyone working in disability inclusion, community development or the NDIS.
Vale Ric Thompson
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Ricky