Everybody belongs. Everybody serves.
Disability
Staci
Michele
Sonja
Richard
Here you'll find resources posted by individuals, churches, and ministries. Add comments, give a 'thumbs up', or post your own. Can't find something? Use the chat box to let us know.
We are excited to announce we will be offering our annual Disability Concerns Leadership Training Event online this year! Save the date for August 5 and 6, 2020.
Every church should be a place where everyone belongs and everyone serves, but often people with disabilities are inadvertently overlooked and not able to participate fully in the life of the church.
This document offers guidelines for planning meetings and events to ensure that all participants with visual impairments can participate fully and safely.
This article identifies several disempowering attitudes that create a lack of trust in the church of people who are blind or have low vision.
In this article, we offers tips and resources for providing the same information that sighted people benefit from to those with visual impairments.
This article addresses socializing issues for people who are blind or have low vision. It's presented in a format that names six common challenges and offers solutions for each one.
Barbara Newman's book Helping Kids Include Kids with Disabilities is a great resource for all leaders working with children. Included in this post is a pdf of Barbara's chapter on Autism Spectrum Disorder.
A resource (check-in, call script, planning guidelines) for all Regional Advocates and Church Advocates to help support their church community in the midst of COVID-19.
A living will (also called an advance directive) identifies the kind of medical care you want or don't want in times of serious illness. If you haven't had those conversations yet, now is the time.
Disability Concerns has assembled a list of support services and resources in the wake of COVID-19. We hope this will be helpful if you are caring for people with disabilities in your community.
Jeannette Versteeg is Evan's mom. She is his #1 advocate, working to ensure that his community fully embraces him. Often she runs into roadblocks because Evan has Down Syndrome.
People with visual impairments or blindness tell stories of welcome, rejection, and finding their way in life and in the church.
With universal design as our model, what preparation steps and options can we plant within our children’s ministries, recognizing that God creates children with great variation? Here are some ideas.
Many designers place form over function, thereby excluding some members of their congregation from participation in worship. Learn how your church can become more accessible.
Many people take medications for pain, for rheumatoid arthritis, for seizures, and for other reasons. In this issue, authors describe the role of medication in their lives and its impact on their faith in God.
Dr. Jay Dolmage is a professor at the University of Waterloo. Recently he spoke on Academic Ableism at Western Theological Seminary. He has shared many great resources with us in this article.
Looking to grow your church? Likely, you have people living close by who would love to get involved.
For Mental Health Awareness Week (Oct 6-12) we encourage your church to develop greater awareness of the one in five people among us who have mental health issues and to consider ways to minister with them.
Deaf and Hard of Hearing—Authors who are hard of hearing or live with family members with hearing loss describe personal challenges and how hearing loss impacts their experience in the church.
From the title to the final, frightening story with which the book concludes, Shar Boerema clings to hope in God and God’s faithful plan for the lives of everyone she loves.
Owen Wigger and his family sent a letter to his first-grade teacher and classmates. Because he does not speak, this letter will help pave the way for their relationships with him.
Disability Concerns shares resources to help your congregation mark Disability Awareness Sunday (October 20, 2019 or whenever works best for your church).
There is one article specific to the Canadian context, but the remainder of the pieces are must-reads all over North America.
Often we are changed in and by our relationships with people with disabilities and their families. Consider these videos a glimpse into their lives and an invitation to deepen relationships in your congregation and community.
Topics include children and youth with disabilities, mental health issues, ways of showing welcome that go beyond physical accessibility, and more. Here they are in one post for your convenience.