In August, Natasha Spassiani (Associate Professor in disability and health equity) and Sam Abdulla (Lecturer in learning disability nursing) attended the IASSIDD 17th world congress in Chicago. Established in in 1960, the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities is the oldest global association dedicated to understanding and improving the quality of life for people with intellectual disabilities.
Sam presented initial findings from his professional doctorate, which explores the professional development of early career and student learning disability nurses in practice placement and Natasha shared her work understanding the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities accessing emergency care. Together, they also facilitated a roundtable discussion in collaboration with colleagues from the university of Illinois in Chicago – Dr Joy Hemmel (Professor in Disability and Human Development and director of graduate studies) and Robin Jones (Director Great Lakes ADA Centre). Exploring the barriers and supports to achieving deinstitutionalisation for people with learning disabilities, the roundtable drew in a diverse audience – with attendees from Japan, Singapore, the UK, the US, the Czech Republic and Pakistan! Finally, the pair also presented a participatory research project which identified barriers and supports to medicine concordance.
The conference closed with impassioned calls from people with learning disabilities, and attendees from the global south to ensure that we live up to the ideals of inclusion. To ensure that presentations are delivered in a range of languages, that information is accessible, that smaller, less prominent voices aren’t pitched against those esteemed colleagues who can draw in the larger audiences. If we as researcher, clinicians and academics in intellectual disability won’t ensure that intersectional identities are able to take their full space, how can we claim to be working inclusively?
The focus of our discussion was that of deinstitutionalisation, when we think of institutions we immediately go to the physical spaces, to four walls, lack of choice, lack of freedoms, of ways of living and being that aren’t authentic to those who are subjected to the institution. However, when we inadvertently or indirectly create environments where diverse voices do not have space, we create an institution of another kind, where we restrain thoughts and ideas.
Despite this, conferences are an opportunity for us to create connections and to reconnect with friends and colleagues from across the world to create energy, for ideas to spark and maybe, for change to happen.
@NSpassiani @SamAbdulla