Parenting with an Intellectual Disability

Supporting parents with an intellectual disability

Join this month’s Open Dialogue to hear from members of the National Advocacy Collective (NAC), a group that brings together parents with an intellectual disability, advocates, allies, researchers and supporters from across Australia to advocate for the rights of parents with an intellectual disability. 

Easy Read information coming soon!

Event Details

• Date: Wednesday 28 October
• Time: 
  • 1:00pm – 2:30pm AEDT (for people in NSW, VIC, ACT, TAS)
  • 12:00pm – 1:30pm AEST (for people in QLD)
  • 12:30pm – 2:00pm ACDT (for people in SA and NT
  • 10:00am – 11:30am AWST (for people in WA
• Location: Online – we will email you the Zoom link before the event. 

About this event

This event will be a conversation between our hosts and guest speakers about parenting with an intellectual disability. There will be ways for you to participate in this conversation by asking a question ahead of time or using the chat function during the event.

Parents with an intellectual disability and self-advocacy expertise will share:

• What the recent NDIS changes may mean for parents with an intellectual disability
• What support parents with an intellectual disability need to be the parents they want to be
• Why self-advocacy is important for parents with an intellectual disability
• How peer support can help parents connect, learn, and support one another
• What research is needed to better understand and support parents with an intellectual disability and their communities.

Join us for this important conversation and learn how we can work together to support the rights of parents with an intellectual disability.

About the hosts

Sonia is an Inclusion Advisor with Inclusion Australia and a member of the Disability Dialogue Steering Committee. Sonia is also a representative of Speak Out Advocacy in Tasmania where she has been a member for over 20 years. Sonia has worked on multiple projects at Speak Out, including advocating for the rights of parents with intellectual disability. Sonia brings lived experience as a parent with an intellectual disability and as the parent of an adult with disability. In 2019 Sonia was part of the Civil Society delegation that travelled to Geneva to present to the United Nations Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons Living with Disability (CRPD). Sonia is passionate about standing up for herself and others. 

Romeo is a Peer Worker with Positive Powerful Parents (PPP) and has been in this role since 2019.  Positive Powerful Parents is a Self-Advocacy group run by and for parents with an intellectual disability. Romeo’s role at PPP includes running 3 parents friendship groups each month, presenting training to self-advocacy groups and supporting parents with intellectual disability to build their self-advocacy skills. Romeo loves animals – they have 1 dog, 3 cats and 2 chickens. Romeo also likes doing craft in their spare time.

About the guest speakers

Crystal is a proud mother of three beautiful boys. Crystal has lived experience of intellectual disability and navigating child protection and other systems.  She believes as a parent it is important is to role model building positive relationships. Crystal also believes it is vital to role model speaking up so her sons know how to use their voice as they grow older. She is a passionate advocate for parents with intellectual disability and has experience presenting at conferences and forums and working alongside QLD Foster and Kinship Care to educate future potential foster carers. Crystal lives on the lands of the Jinibara and Kabi Kabi peoples.

Susan (Associate Professor Susan Collings) is co-Deputy Director of the Transforming early Education and Child Health Research Centre (TeEACH) at Western Sydney University. She is an applied social scientist whose work focuses on lived experience, human rights, and reducing social inequalities so that children and families can thrive. Working with governments, service providers, practitioners, and community stakeholders, she has contributed to improvements in child welfare and disability policy and practice, including support planning, family-led decision-making, birth family contact, and parenting capacity assessment. She was a founding member of the Australian National Advocacy Collective for Parents with Intellectual Disability and serves on the executive of the International Special Interest Research Group on Parenting with Intellectual Disability and the board of the Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability.

About the NAC

The NAC’s goal is to make sure that the human rights of parents with an intellectual disability are upheld and that they have the support they need to be the parents they want to be.

Learn more about the NAC here: National Advocacy Collective (NAC) – Inclusion Australia

About the Disability Dialogue

Disability Dialogue is a safe space where people with disability, families, representative organisations, providers, researchers, and the wider community work together on things that matter to us.

We are led by people with disability. That means we’re the ones in charge, generating ideas, making decisions, and leading the way.

We are a joint initiative of DANA, Inclusion Australia, Ability First Australia and the Melbourne Disability Institute.

We are funded through an Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) grant from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (DHDA).