By Pamela M. Walker and Patricia Rogan; 162 pages. Subtitle: Promoting Typical Lifestyles for Adults With Significant Disabilities
If you ever imagine your child growing up to a life with no work, no freedom, no friends, no reason for getting in the morning, this book will be immeasurably cheering. It spreads the current enthusiasm for inclusive education into a vision for inclusive life, with people with disabilities fully embraced by the community. Society's not there yet, but it's nice to dream of the possibilities.
- Paints an optimistic picture of a full life for adults with disabilities
- Text, though written for professionals, is easy to read and jargon-light
- Describes opportunities for college, work, and independent living
- Indicates what changes need to start when kids are younger to make these programs feasible
- Gives parents enough information to know what to start asking for
- Takes a dim view of those who favor more protective environments
- Since those protectors are often parents, it's easy to feel disrespected
- By the authors' admission, most of the programs described are not yet common practice
- Places no value on any sort of benefit people with disabilities might derive from one another
- Chapter 1: Toward Meaningful Daytimes for Adults With Significant Disabilities
- Chapter 2: Preparing for Meaningful Adult Lives Through School and Transition Experiences
- Chapter 3: Toward Full Citizenship - New Directions in Employment for People With Significant Disabilities
- Chapter 4: Creating Inclusive Postsecondary Educational Environments
- Chapter 5: Promoting Meaningful Leisure and Social Connections - More Than Just Work
- Chapter 6: Advocacy and Systems Change Work
- Chapter 7: Promoting a Good Old Age - Strategies for Identifying Interests and Developing Community Connections
- Chapter 8: Moving From Facility-Based Day Services to Integrated Employment and Community Supports
- Chapter 9: Toward Meaningful Lives - A Convergence of Events, Problems, and Possibilities
Can you imagine an adult life for your child?
Not just survival, but life. A job, a home, a place in the world. Can you picture it? The authors of Make the Day Matter! can. They present a compelling case for mainstreaming in both school and what comes after -- college, jobs, living situations. It's a heck of a pretty picture, and maybe the antidote for all those news reports sinking our hearts these days about people with disabilities being ejected from churches and restaurants and airplanes.
In a book written by and for professionals but absolutely accessible to parents, the authors discuss programs that move people out of group homes and into their own houses and apartments; that move people out of sheltered workshops and into community businesses or self-employment; and that allow people to choose social opportunities based on their own interests instead of what staff arranges.
Of course, though there are some programs like this working now, they're still the exception to the rule, and the habits of exclusion are hard to displace. I appreciate the writers' zeal in wishing to overturn those old ways of doing things. I wish it didn't make them so willing to make parents look like old stick-in-the-muds if they have concerns; it's likely our pushing that's going to make this happen, ultimately, so show a little respect.
I also wish there was more recognition of the fact that, while having friends in the mainstream is important, having friends like yourself has some value, too. Inclusion should not have to mean completely abandoning fellowship with other people with disabilities.
Still, it's clearly time for all of us to think about what independence would look like for our kids, and what would be needed to get them (and us) there. This book is good for getting those thoughts -- and those big plans -- underway.
