Our Listen Include Respect reference group met for the first time (online) to discuss the process for producing international guidelines on the inclusive participation of people with intellectual disabilities in the running and work of organisations. We are producing the guidelines in partnership with Inclusion International.

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Who took part

20 reference group members from 14 countries took part in the call, plus support people and staff from DSi and Inclusion International. Most of these 20 members were people with intellectual disabilities, with a few organisation representatives without intellectual disabilities also included.

We had 3 separate calls to allow people from different time zones to take part.

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What did we talk about?

Everyone introduced themselves as it was the first meeting and then we split into small groups to discuss:

• What we mean by inclusive participation
• Our experiences of inclusive participation
• Why this work is important to us

The group had lots of different experiences of good and bad inclusion to share.

We then asked the group for feedback on our 'terms of reference' for the group.

Finally we talked through our work plan for the project.

We look forward to our next meeting.

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Read more about the inclusive participation guidelines here:

INCLUSIVE PARTICIPATION