What can parents and teachers do to help facilitate the sorts of ongoing, mutually reciprocal interactions that lead to true friendship? Dr. Zach Rossetti is a special education professor who says that parents and teachers can help foster better friendship-building opportunities: it starts with enabling a shared space for social engagement, then simply getting out of the way. And of course, inclusive education and teaching social skills (for all kids, not just kids with disabilities) play a big role too. Zach joined Genia for this episode to talk about his research on disability and friendship, and the solutions he envisions to help kids with disabilities build full, rewarding social lives. 

Why is it so important to include kids with disabilities in the general education classroom? To Diane Richler, an international disability advocate with fifty years of experience, it boils down to human rights. All people have the right to a quality education, and for kids with intellectual disabilities, inclusive programs are the highest quality programs. Diane’s work with the international disability community is trying to help promote the essential human rights of people with intellectual disabilities, including the right to high-quality inclusive education. Listen now to her chat with Genia Stephen about inclusion, human rights, and advocacy. Listen now!

How can a school psychologist help your child with a disability? Striving for inclusive education is a complex battle and when parents develop a relationship with the school psychologist, that can help to simplify and demystify the process. Aaron Dunham is one such psychologist and he joined Genia for this week’s podcast to talk about the confluence between data, cooperation, and even humility in striving for systemic change, as well as psychoeducational assessments and how parents can decide whether they’re really worth it. Listen now!

The research is clear: inclusion works. But too many programs are still segregating students based on ability. Educator and academic Jacqueline Specht is researching the best ways to implement inclusion into the classroom, and she has identified educator training as a critical period in establishing the individual pedagogical values and self-confidence needed to not just accommodate students with disabilities, but embrace them as worthy participants in the classroom. Listen now to her chat with Genia Stephen about how training teachers early on to expect, accommodate, and embrace students with disabilities is an important first step.

When activists and advocates focus their efforts regionally, but have access to resources and allies that spread across the globe, it’s a potent formula for empowering members of a community and really democratizing the advocacy process. The Citizen Network Coop’s Simon Duffy and Markus Vähälä know that rebellion is at the heart of this empowerment and that cooperation is key to really challenging the status quo. Listen now to their talk with Genia Stephen about the rebelliousness of social progress and the importance of cooperation, both regionally and internationally, in disability advocacy.

Catherine Whitcher's IEP creation methods have helped thousands of parents and schools work together to prepare students for further education, employment, and independent living. Through her Master IEP Coach Mentorship + Network, Catherine teaches parents how to demystify and assume their rights as members of the IEP team and how to ensure their child’s best interests are truly reflected in their IEP. She joined Genia Stephen for a conversation about IEP strategy and making sure parent input is foregrounded in the development and implementation of IEPs.

Special education should not be synonymous with separate education. That’s the position of the MCIE’s Tim Villegas. The MCIE works with educators and school districts to help integrate meaningful inclusive education into the classroom. Moving from full segregation to authentic inclusion is not going to happen overnight. But although the pace of change can be slow, incremental progress still counts as progress. And when children with disabilities don’t have access to inclusive education programs, there is still a lot that advocates, parents, and teachers can do to help support their goals and dreams. Tim joined Genia Stephen for this week’s podcast to talk about the MCIE’s mission and their approach to inclusive education advocacy and curriculum support. 

There’s a term too often neglected in conversations about disability: citizen. This is a core guiding principle of the Citizen-Centered Leadership Development (CCLD) Community of Practice, Carol Blessing’s innovative 15-week course for service providers that work with people with disabilities. In this episode, Genia Stephen talks to Carol about her CCLD program and her concept of radicalized citizenship. Carol explains how the social model of disability, which is often held up as the gold standard for disability service delivery, is insufficient because it doesn’t recognize the notion of participatory citizenship for people with disabilities. Systemic change won’t make any difference until service providers start thinking about people with disabilities as social citizens and working to build real relationships with them. 

Addie Loerzel is a 15-year-old girl with a disability who has raised nearly $80,000 for the Sunshine Foundation. She’s also the current crown-holder of the Princess of America Miss Minnesota pageant and a regular public speaker and advocate for kids with disabilities. In this week’s episode Genia Stephen welcomes Addie to the podcast to talk about how she has accomplished so much for someone so young, and where she’s looking to take her fundraising efforts next. She’s an inspiring youth leader worth following!

Genia Stephen turns hosting duties over to Pamela Mansell, who interviews Dr. Hanns Meissner, author of Creating Blue Space: Fostering Innovative Support Practices for People with Developmental Disabilities. Hanns talks to Pamela about his innovative concept of “blue space,” the peaceful centre of a storm, and how blue space can be an important factor in achieving real independence and community participation for people with disabilities. By understanding how blue space works and how to wield it, people with disabilities and their advocates can break the boxes they’ve been placed in and assert their right to a meaningful place in their communities.