Inclusion International is the network of people with intellectual disabilities and their families.

Families are a key part of our movement, and families are often the natural advocates for their family members.

To mark this year’s International Day of Families, we are celebrating that advocacy by sharing resources built specifically for families.

When people with intellectual disabilities face exclusion, through exclusion, segregation, or integration without support, it is usually families who step up to challenge the system.

Families support their loved ones to engage in the education system and the community. Pushing for the right to inclusive education is often a family member’s first step into lifelong advocacy.

However, dealing with the education system can be isolating. Families are often told that segregated options are best, making it difficult to imagine what true inclusion looks like.

To support the families in our network, we have developed two practical toolkits, available globally in English, French, Spanish, and Swahili.

Toolkits to Strengthen Family Advocacy

We developed these toolkits with family leaders from sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. These resources are designed to equip family networks with the knowledge and strategies they need to hold systems accountable.

1. Supporting Families to Become Conversation Leaders on Inclusive Education

This toolkit provides resources to families to become confident conversation leaders on inclusive education. It helps break down complex ideas and concepts into practical tools. Highlights include:

  • Building a Vision: Strategies to help families understand the difference between true inclusion, integration, and segregation.
  • The Role of Families: Guidance on how family members can partner with schools, act as myth debunkers, and set positive expectations for their family member’s learning.
  • Understanding UDL: Clear breakdowns of Universal Design for Learning, helping families advocate for flexible curriculums that benefit all learners.
  • Monitoring Inclusion: Strategies for family-led monitoring at local and national levels, ensuring governments and schools deliver on their human rights obligations.

Download the toolkit in English, Spanish, French, or Swahili.

2. Supporting the Work of Family Groups: A Toolkit for Strengthening Local Family-Based Advocacy

Grassroots family groups are on the front lines in the fight for inclusive education and community inclusion. This toolkit is dedicated to the organizations and partners that collaborate with them, providing a roadmap to strengthen these networks and maximize their impact. Highlights include:

  • Family Support Action Plan: A practical framework to help new family groups formalise their work, plan their next steps, and determine how best to deliver support and guidance to their members.
  • Helping Families to Build an Inclusive Vision: Strategies and discussion guides to unite families around ideas like equality, diversity, and belonging, helping them shift toward a rights-based perspective.
  • Community Partnership Mapping Tool: A worksheet to help family groups identify, evaluate, and collaborate with allies in their area: including schools and cross-disability organisations.
  • Advocacy Strategies for Family Groups: Approaches for creating change at the community level, like joining policy conversations, running local campaigns, speaking to the media, and raising the voices of self-advocates.

Download the toolkit in English, Spanish, French, or Swahili.

Inclusion in All Contexts

Alongside our everyday advocacy, Inclusion International does a lot of important work on inclusive education in emergency situations with our members.

See what we’re doing in our project with Education Cannot Wait here.

Whether in a community or crisis setting, the goal remains the same: making sure that the right to education is never taken away from learners with intellectual disabilities.

This International Day of Families, we’re committing to giving families the tools they need to lead the conversation.

These toolkits were created with funding from the World Bank Inclusive Education Initiative.