The AAIDD Religion & Spirituality Interest Network is glad to share an upcoming coordinated webinar with the Faith and Culture Network.
As part of its lunchtime webinar series, the Faith and Culture Network is hosting a conversation designed to raise awareness and share knowledge about how we can better support faith and culture within the Developmental Services sector.
Join members of a collaborative project team from The Centre for Civic Religious Literacy and partner organizations including posAbilities, Kinsight, BACI, and Curiko for a conversation about spirituality and wellbeing in the lives of persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Together, we’ll explore:
why spirituality is too important to ignore
what persons with IDD, families, and agencies are saying
some of the questions, tensions, and old confusions that still need attention
brave, creative, and practical ways to begin
This session shares emerging learning, invites reflection, and points toward further possibilities.
This webinar is presented in coordination with the Faith and Culture Network of Ontario.
If this conversation resonates with you, we hope you’ll join us and share the invitation with others. See the poster below for more information, including how to contact us.
The AAIDD Religion and Spirituality Interest Network is pleased to announce that Joohi Tahir has been named the recipient of the 2026 Reimagining Spirituality Leadership Award.
Joohi Tahir: Co-Founder & Executive Director of @muhsenorg, championing inclusion for Muslims with disabilities! Boston University grad with 20+ years in corporate & global marketing, but her greatest inspiration? Her daughter on the autism spectrum.For 18 years, she’s led initiatives advancing accessibility & acceptance across North America. MWA 2015 Inspiring Women’s Award winner, recognized as Top 7 Muslim American Women to Celebrate in 2017, and TRT World Citizen Award 2026.
This award recognizes leaders whose work has significantly shaped the spiritual lives, inclusion, and belonging of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It honours those who expand access to faith communities, deepen understanding of spiritual gifts and needs, and foster meaningful participation in religious life.
Joohi Tahir serves as Executive Director of MUHSEN (Muslims Understanding & Helping Special Education Needs), a pioneering organization dedicated to advancing inclusion within Muslim communities. Under her leadership, MUHSEN has developed innovative programs that support accessibility, awareness, and full participation for individuals with disabilities and their families across North America and internationally.
Central to Joohi’s work is a commitment to reimagining what inclusion looks like in faith communities. Through initiatives such as the MUHSEN Masjid Certification Program, accessible religious education, and supported participation in pilgrimage, her leadership has helped reshape both practice and understanding. Her work reflects a sustained integration of faith and action, ensuring that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are not simply accommodated, but welcomed as full participants in community life.
Joohi’s influence extends beyond any single organization. She has contributed to broader interfaith and collaborative efforts, helping to build bridges across communities and deepen shared commitments to dignity, belonging, and mutual learning.
The award will be presented in connection with the AAIDD Annual Conference, June 22–24, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois, during the Religion and Spirituality Interest Network forum.
Please join us in celebrating Joohi Tahir and her ongoing leadership in advancing spiritual inclusion and belonging.
The AAIDD Religion & Spirituality Interest Network works to foster opportunities for spiritual growth among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Original Martha Perske prints are available as one way to support that work.
Martha Perske was renowned for her black-and-white artistic drawings of children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Many of her drawings were used as illustrations for books authored by her husband, Bob Perske.
These drawings have also been described as among the first to catch the beauty of people’s faces and their humanity as many people were coming out of institutions and being mainstreamed in schools.
These last remaining copies of the original prints were given to the AAIDD Religion & Spirituality Interest Network and are being made available for individuals, organizations, or congregations. Prints have been offered at $50 each, or 5 for $200.
If you are interested, view the PDF below for information on contacting Bill Gaventa with the prints you are interested in to first check whether they are still available and to receive payment instructions. Availability varies.
Sales of the Perske prints have previously helped generate funds for the network, and this offering provides a meaningful way to support its ongoing work.
The AAIDD Religion and Spirituality Interest Network is committed to including people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the AAIDD annual national conference. We have funds to provide a $500 scholarship for one adult with intellectual or developmental disability who is involved in self-advocacy and is interested in attending the AAIDD Annual Meeting.
We are particularly interested in self-advocates who have an interest in religion and/or spirituality, including how people with disabilities experience belonging, meaning, or participation in faith or spiritual life. Being part of a faith community is not required.
You may fill this out on paper, type your answers, or record audio or video responses. You may also get help from a family member, friend, or support person.
The AAIDD Religion & Spirituality Interest Network recently contributed to a Council on Quality and Leadership (CQL) webinar and companion article on non-traditional spirituality, expanding how organizations understand and support spiritual expression among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Their discussion centered on the lived reality that spiritual life often unfolds outside institutional religion. People express spirituality through nature, creativity, meditation, music, service activities, or community rituals. These practices support meaning, purpose, and connection even when they don’t look like formal worship.
Tammy Besser’s CQL article, Supporting Non-Traditional Spirituality, outlines the core themes that shape spirituality: connection to something greater than oneself, the search for meaning and purpose, and connection to or experience of the divine. Essential to understanding spirituality is that the individual defines what is sacred or holy for them. These themes helped frame both the article and the webinar. The article and webinar describe how activities such as gratitude jars, community gardens, drumming circles, open mic nights, or neighborhood clean-ups function as spiritual practices when they help someone orient toward meaning or transcendence.
The Interest Network’s contribution highlighted practical examples from diverse service contexts. Michelle Johnson shared her personal spiritual journey, and Camphill Communities Ontario described how ritual and meaning are woven into daily life. Presenters also demonstrated how staff education, discovery conversations, and creative problem-solving can reduce barriers to spiritual expression, especially for people who do not find resonance in traditional religious settings.
This work aligns closely with the mission of the AAIDD Religion & Spirituality Interest Network and with broader quality-of-life principles. Spirituality remains essential to personal well-being, yet organizations often limit support to formal, traditional, religious activity. Recognizing non-traditional pathways creates space for people to explore the practices that genuinely sustain them, whether through art, community, nature, service, or reflective disciplines.
Both the webinar and the article offer concrete guidance for organizations seeking to broaden their approach. They also demonstrate the influence of AAIDD R&S IN members in shaping national conversations about inclusive spiritual life.
Rev. Dr. McKenney will be presented with the 2025 Reimagining Spirituality Leadership Award by the Religion and Spirituality Interest Network of AAIDD at the Network Forum on June 23, 2025.
We are pleased to announce Rev. Dr. Sarah McKenney as the 2025 recipient of the Reimagining Spirituality Leadership Award! This award recognizes the creative ways she has promoted opportunities for people with disabilities for personal spiritual growth, developing enriching relationships, and participating in spiritual or religious community.
As Spiritual Support Coordinator at Stone Belt Arc, Rev. Dr. McKenney leads the organization’s first-ever Spiritual Support Program. Specifically, she developed and led an innovative Spiritual Engagement Coach pilot program that paired trained coaches with people to support their spiritual goals. The program has shown measurable outcomes in belonging, joy, and well-being, with many participants transitioning to natural community supports. She created a replicable model that is designed to be a potential Medicaid Waiver service, and now hopes it gets picked up as such.
In addition to this groundbreaking work, Sarah accompanies people through grief and end-of-life care, training both staff and families to walk alongside them during major life transitions. She earned her Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) in Disability and Ministry in 2024 and her Master of Divinity (M.Div.) in 2012. She brings over fifteen years of experience and currently serves as Vice President of the Religion and Spirituality Interest Network of AAIDD. As someone with disabilities herself, Sarah brings a unique and embodied perspective to her work, experiencing the world through the lenses of dyslexia and ADHD.
We are grateful for Rev. Dr. McKenney’s bold and compassionate leadership in reimagining spiritual support, and we look forward to celebrating her work at this year’s forum.
Erin Raffety will be presented with the 2024 Reimagining Spirituality Leadership Award by the Religion and Spirituality Interest Network of AAIDD at the Network Forum on June 10, 2023.
We are pleased to announce Rev. Dr. Erin Raffety as the 2024 recipient of the Reimagining Spirituality Leadership Award! This award recognizes the creative ways she has promoted opportunities for people with disabilities for personal spiritual growth, developing enriching relationships, and participating in spiritual or religious community.
Rev. Dr. Erin Raffety is a Practical Theologian who uses ethnographic methods to study Christian congregations and communities. Raffety is currently a Lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program where she teaches on disability justice. She is ordained as a Teaching Elder in the PC(USA), holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology, is a proud parent of a daughter with multiple disabilities, and a disability advocate.
At Princeton Theological Seminary, Raffety serves as the Senior Researcher on the Isaiah Partnership, the Empirical Research Consultant on the Imagining Church, and the Associate Research Scholar for the Institute for Youth Ministry. She is also currently the Scholar-in-Residence for the Missing Voices 2.0 grant at Flagler College that is working to develop practical and scholarly resources for youth workers in ministry with disabled youth (2023-2025). From 2020-2023, she served as a Research Fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry, where she built and studied a Minecraft video game for disabled Christians and their congregations, and conducted a study on worship access for Christians living with Long COVID and chronic illness.
She is also the author of two books, one on disability ministry in the United States, From Inclusion to Justice (Baylor, Sept 1, 2022), and the other on disability and foster care in China, Families We Need (Rutgers, Nov 11, 2022), as well as numerous academic and popular articles.
Karen Jackson will be presented with the 2023 Reimagining Spirituality Leadership Award by the Religion and Spirituality Interest Network of AAIDD at the Network Forum on June 5, 2023.
UPDATE: Read the announcement on the AAIDD Website, here!
We are pleased to announce Karen Jackson as the 2023 recipient of the Reimagining Spirituality Leadership Award! This award recognizes the creative ways she has promoted opportunities for people with disabilities for personal spiritual growth, developing enriching relationships, and participating in spiritual or religious community.
Karen F. Jackson
Mrs. Jackson lives in Norfolk, VA with her husband Scott and daughter, Samantha. She graduated from the Eastman School of Music with a BM in Music Education and Clarinet Performance and from Temple University with an MM in Music Education. She has been a professional music educator for 33 years and is currently Director of Bands and Fine Arts Department Chair at Norfolk Christian Schools.
Karen’s experience in the faith and disability community began 15 years ago when, while searching for a congregation that would welcome her daughter who is severely affected by autism, she began advocating in congregations in her community. In 2007 she accepted a position as her Catholic church’s first Parish Advocate for persons affected by disability. This volunteer position led Karen to found Faith Inclusion Network in 2008.
In addition to leading Faith Inclusion Network for the organization’s first 14 years, Mrs. Jackson has spoken at a variety of conferences, including the AAIDD Annual Meeting, TASH Annual Conference, the Summer Institute on Theology and Disability and the AUCD Annual Conference. Her published writing includes articles in The Catholic Virginian, U.S. Catholic, TASH Connections and for various websites. She also contributed to the book, Amazing Gifts: Stories of Faith, Disability and Inclusion by Mark Pinsky and is the author of her own book, Loving Samantha published in 2015.
Dr. Jeff McNair was presented with the 2022 Reimagining Spirituality Leadership Award by the Religion and Spirituality Interest Network of AAIDD. The award was presented at the Network Forum on June 13, 2022.
McNair is professor of Special Education at California Baptist University (CBU). After receiving his BA in Christian Education (Wheaton College), he completed an MA (Cal State LA) and a Ph.D. in Special Education (University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana). He went on to teach at Cal State San Bernardino for 15 years and has been at CBU since 2004 training teachers to educate students with extensive needs. While completing his education, he and his wife Kathi have been involved in disability ministry at the local churches they attended, starting in 1974.
Over these years, Jeff increasingly saw the connection between community integration and the potential of the local Christian community. Study of the Bible led to a growing understanding of a Biblical perspective on disability resulting in writing, lecturing and teaching about this perspective. He also worked for ten years for the Joni and Friends organization allowing him to teach about disability ministry/theology in 21 countries on 5 continents. Jeff founded the Disability Studies MA at CBU arguably the first grad program in disability ministry. He has delivered numerous sermons and has over 60 publications on these issues. His weblog disabledChristianity has resulted in two books.
For the last 30 years, he and Kathi have facilitated The Light & Power Company, a ministry that includes adults with developmental disabilities at Trinity EV Free church in Redlands, California also resulting in the publication of curriculum for adults with intellectual disabilities most recently on Philippians. Jeff has also been involved with his son Josh producing father/son travel videos the most successful on Route 66 which has ten million views (Through My Lens). Second only to his love for his family, the passion of Jeff and Kathi’s lives has been that the Christian church would truly love their neighbors with disabilities.
Shelly Christensen, MA, FAAIDD of Minneapolis, Minn. has been named the 2021 recipient of the Religion and Spirituality Leadership Award. You can watch the award presentation and Shelly’s speech below and learn more about Shelly on this page.
Award Presentation:
Shelly Christensen is a pioneer and leader in the faith community disability and mental health inclusion field. Her career spans over twenty years and was anchored by her experiences as the parent of a child with autism. Long before she was an emerging leader in the field, Shelly was trained as a parent advocate, unwaveringly holding the school accountable for her son’s rights to a free appropriate public education as mandated in the IDEA. The family’s synagogue and religious school their sons attended treated all children with equity and respect, seamlessly adapting education to meet each child’s needs and ensuring his lifelong connection to his Jewish identity and community.
Twenty-five years after earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Minnesota, Christensen earned a Master of Arts degree in Developmental Disabilities from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. Her graduate work centered on the parent experience when a child is diagnosed, particularly four universal needs: getting information about the disability, locating services, finding social and emotional support, and making meaning.
Shelly Christensen began her professional career as the Program Manager of a new program, the Jewish Community Inclusion Program for People with Disabilities. Her innovative leadership approach supported synagogues, schools, community centers, and other agencies to significantly adapt attitudes toward people with disabilities and those who love them, applying theological texts, employing person-centered support, and prioritizing inclusion throughout the organization. After the publication of her first book, The Jewish Community Guide to Inclusion of People with Disabilities, she was in demand as a keynote speaker, trainer, and mentor to many Jewish communities in North America.
In 2009, Christensen co-founded Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month with the Jewish Special Education Consortium. The purpose was to coalesce communities and organizations to raise awareness about disability inclusion and designating one month for JDAIM. Shelly coordinates this grassroots initiative. A handful of communities and organizations participated the first year. Now JDAIM is recognized around the world by national and international organizations as well as locally. Shelly also consults with an interfaith initiative, Community for All, which is based on JDAIM.
In her 2018 book, From Longing to Belonging—A Practical Guide to Including People with Disabilities and Mental Health Conditions in Your Faith Community, she weaves stories, practical strategies and step by step guidance, as well as references to supporting biblical text, to foster diversity, equity and inclusion. In 2020 Shelly and colleague Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer co-created “Everyone’s Welcome-A Fresh Conversation About Disability.” Everyone’s welcome is a twice-monthly webinar series in which guests from diverse faiths, practices, interests, and lived experiences share their stories and their work. Shelly is currently developing an online course based on From Longing to Belonging that will launch as a pilot in 2021.
AAIDD Religion & Spirituality Network 