CACL’s 2011 National Report Card on Inclusion focuses on how Canada is doing in the areas of Securing Child Rights and Needed Supports, and Establishing Safe and Inclusive Communities. These are two of the 10 objectives in CACL’s Vision 2020 agenda – an agenda adopted by CACL to assist Canadians and governments in building a more inclusive Canada.
In 2006 Gordon Kyle of Community Living Ontario and Gordon Porter from CACL/ Inclusive Education Canada, made a visit to a senior staff member of the Ontario College of Teachers. They discussed issues involving professional standards for teachers and highlighted the need to make sure teachers in Ontario schools have the knowledge and skills to make inclusion successful.
Over 50 years ago parents started meeting in communities across Canada to share their concerns that their sons and daughters with intellectual disabilities were not being given the opportunities to fulfill their potential; that they had no valued place in society. Denied access to public education that their own tax dollars were helping to fund parents began demanding a different future, began making a claim on governments and society for what we now call full citizenship and inclusion.
A recently released report by Cameron Crawford of the Institute for Research on Inclusion and Society (IRIS) provides a demographic snapshot of the employment situation of people with intellectual disabilities. The report draws from the 2006 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS), which was Statistics Canada’s ‘flagship’ survey on disability.
The 2010 Report was released December 3rd, 2010 on International Disability Day. The 2010 National Report Card on Inclusion explores how Canada is doing in the areas of inclusive education, Disability Supports and Family Supports. The report card highlights these three areas as top priorities for changing the status of Canadians with intellectual disabilities and their families.