Presidential Address, 2014—Embracing Complexity: Community Inclusion, Participation, and Citizenship

A couple of years ago, Mike Wehmeyer set a new precedent by issuing the presidential address at the beginning of his term, rather than at the end. So, thank you Mike for establishing this tradition—I am sure that I will like it more in about 30 minutes—and thanks to all of you, who stayed to the end of the conference, for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon to deliver my presidential address, Embracing Complexity: Community Inclusion, Participation, and Citizenship, and to serve your organization in a leadership role. It is such an honor to be here today among so many people that I consider esteemed colleagues and dear friends. I am certainly humbled by this opportunity and, frankly, a little intimidated to be speaking to a group of such distinguished leaders in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).My path to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) was pretty simple. I was working for a provider organization and one of my colleagues came back from an AAIDD Minnesota meeting and mentioned planning the upcoming state conference. I told her that sounded interesting, and she invited me to the next meeting. I have been involved since that time and have always found AAIDD to be my professional home because of its multidisciplinary focus on IDD. My path to this organization should be a reminder to all of you that all it takes is a simple invitation and people respond and become engaged. I urge each of you to invite at least one of your colleagues or friends to join AAIDD.As a good steward of the role of incoming president of this organization and this task of putting together these thoughts, I did my homework. Thanks to Maggie Nygren's help, I was able to read presidential speeches in every decade since this organization began. I started with 1894 and ended by reading every speech that I have listened to in the 20+ years I have been a member. My purpose for this task was to understand a bit of AAIDD history and to look for trends and themes that relate to the topic of my address, Embracing Complexity: Community Inclusion, Participation, and Citizenship.I can unequivocally report to you that this organization has been wrestling with these issues since its beginning; certainly in different time periods and contexts but, at the root, very similar issues. In preparing, I also consulted with living past presidents of the association to learn from them what they perceived as the most complex issues we face in the contemporary field. Now, I have to admit, part of this exercise was to validate that I was not way off base in the complexities I thought existed and planned to include in my address. To my surprise, nearly all of the living past presidents who responded to my request had remarkably similar ideas about the complexities we face, and, luckily for me, I was not way off base.Most importantly, as I prepared, I reflected on and consulted with the people with whom I have worked and learned from throughout my career who live with disabilities. Their voices and our shared experiences will certainly be heard throughout my remarks.Lastly, I consulted with the Merriam-Webster dictionary to ensure that I had a clear understanding of the words I selected for the conference theme. I was initially a bit overwhelmed and stunned at the amount of advertising that was occurring as I was consulting the online dictionary, and I was simultaneously fascinated by how this advertising changed depending on the word I was searching for. It is truly fascinating. This complex marketing was a lesson for me in the remarkable changes that have occurred in our culture since I have been a member of this association and a lesson in the power of marketing and advertising. However, as a quick reminder, or perhaps as a mini-lesson to you, here's what Merriam-Webster had to say about the conference theme.According to Merriam-Webster, complexity is really the state of not being simple or, conversely, the state of being complex, which is something that is complicated or hard to understand. I asked myself if I really thought that what has evolved to be the community living services and support system for people with IDD in the United States is complex, complicated, and hard to understand. Without question, the answer to this is, YES, through my lens and the lenses of the people with disabilities and their families that I know.Inclusion is the act of including or to be included. However, this definition also discusses the relationship between two classes, where all members of both are included. I was surprised to discover that in the dictionary I consulted, the definition of inclusion also defines this word as the practice of students with disabilities being included in regular school classes. To me, this is evidence of how we use words in this field and how, over time, these words result in changed meanings or definitions of the original word.Participation is about being involved in and being related to a larger whole, as defined in Merriam-Webster. In the context of community living, participation is about participating in communities in ways that others do.Lastly, citizenship is about being a citizen, having membership in a community, and the quality of a person's response to that membership (as defined in Merriam-Webster). In selecting the conference theme, I knew that there needed to be a colon (because there is always a colon in such titles), but I struggled with the words that would follow the colon. In this field, we often use the words inclusion, participation, and citizenship interchangeably. We also use them collectively when referring to people with IDD having full, rich lives of their in the they have different I they an and of quality community is time to address all of the complexities that have evolved in this the issues are a and I often myself to asked of me by system is or answer is complex for the time we simple such as where people where they and how we on have an complex I to a complexities in of to me that relate to community living, and I am that they are of to you as you are these with me how we should them we should through or them and on to something about services and to people with IDD is about community Community living has become a complex and in this field. living in an or in the has different and new We we have learned and evolved our Community living is as living where and with whom they working in of their and of their being to an of friends and with whom they have and and through for and of and having membership in community and the of their and the of citizenship as and for community living is the for all However, the complexity of community living from the that each lives in the We all live and in different contexts and we through a of and Community living and participation for people with IDD is by many and by whom they are as a being and by whom they as their and of is also by the and of who the services and for people to in their communities and by the and that for and these of the quality of and the that the and of to in the community for many people with and services that have evolved over the past 30 years have in a complex one that is if not for and families to a by a of that are in our field. often services or the services and are so complex that many have or are new services services are to purpose is to people the complex developmental disabilities system is so complex that it has its many of you the and families you students you or you with a of or a of with their are not we and our of our and new are what I in which and for services and are in for all people with all of disabilities. 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