Inge Volleberg writes about our new project listening to young parents and siblings of children with intellectual disabilities.
On 2 September, I had the first sibling focus group for Inclusion Europe’s project on the situation of young families with children with intellectual disabilities, which we organise together with Tania Damianova-Sabir.
For me, it was incredibly important to include siblings and their lived experiences in this project. Too often when we talk about families and family members, siblings are forgotten or overlooked. But they are part of the family unit, they too provide support to their sibling or parents, they too are affected by the situation regarding their sibling.
And the discussion we had today during the focus group showed all of that and more. We discussed the positives of being a sibling, the support they provided at home, and the support they had needed themselves but was very hard to find.
It is days like this that remind me of the importance of the work we do, not only for the people with intellectual disabilities but also for the important people in their lives who are also hurting because of this segregating system.
More focus groups are coming up. And we are also looking for parents who would like to participate. Email me if you are interested.
I can’t wait until we can share more about our findings, so stay tuned 😉
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