AAIDD Religion & Spirituality Network
"Working to foster opportunities for spiritual growth among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities."
Update June 6, 2012
The upcoming national conference promises to be fruitful and fun as always. Although budgets are stretched, it is important to take time out to renew ourselves and reconnect with each other. There are many good sessions to attend, including a panel on Spiritual Communities of Support consisting of three presenters from the division.
Spiritual Communities of Support Track
Continue reading “Religion and Disability Division Activities at the National Conference”
April is Autism Awareness Month. Catholic parish resources can be found on the the National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD) website. Items included are Mass petitions, bulletin announcements, a prayer of St. Francis for Autism, and press release. Upon exploring the many resources on NCPD’s website, you can find other items of interest as well. Other faith communities may also be interested in adapting these resources for your particular needs.
Continue reading “Autism Awareness Month and the National Catholic Partnership on Disability”
This is how an Amazon reviewer described Erik W. Carter’s 2007 text, Including People with Disabilities in Faith Communities (Brookes Publishing, Baltimore. ISBN 9781997667434, $18.75 new/$14.33 used) and I concur.
Continue reading “Review of Including People with Disabilities in Faith Communities”
Report from the January COMISS Network Forum in Arlingon, VA
COMISS is a network of professional organizations concerning chaplaincy. It includes professional chaplain organizations, chaplain certifying organizations and organizations that train chaplains. COMISS is the sponsor of the annual pastoral care week, which occurs in October of every year. It also has a commission that acreditates training organizations/sites.
By definition, a person with an intellectual or developmental disability has a physical impairment. They have a characteristic, labeled an impairment, makes them “atypical” when compared with other human beings. This bodily impairment (to use Wolfensberger’s terms) may then become a functional impairment depending upon the investment a society makes. Using a wheelchair, becomes a functional impairment in a physically inaccessible environment. But functional impairments can also be caused by socially inaccessible environments.
Continue reading “Functional social impairments”
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