By Trish Bowman, Inclusion Alberta CEO

“Safety is not the absence of threat; it is the presence of connection.” -Gabor Mate 

In a world full of turmoil and uncertainty, people tend toward the comfort and safety of turning inward, and those who live on the edges of society find themselves at greater risk. This is particularly true for children and adults with intellectual disabilities and their families. This year, I’d like to challenge each of us to intentionally turn outward, and to cultivate belonging for those who find themselves at greater risk in isolation.  

It’s been a difficult year for children and adults with intellectual disabilities and their families. Essential supports, previously available for decades in Alberta, that enabled families of children with disabilities to stay healthy and safe, for their children to thrive, and for adults with intellectual disabilities to live and participate in community are rapidly disappearing.   

Long waits and denials for supports persist. Adults who depend on Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) have seen financial blow after blow that threaten to drive them deeper into poverty – from rent increases to benefit clawbacks and the looming reduction of their support payments coming in 2026 with the newly introduced Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP). Children with disabilities are continually being denied an inclusive education at their neighbourhood school, and the ones who are welcomed were out of school for not one but two strikes this year, the only ones discriminately told to stay home during the support worker strike.  

Inclusion Alberta CEO Trish Bowman

Yet irrespective of the times we live in, families, with Inclusion Alberta by their side, continue to relentlessly pursue hope and possibility. And fortunately, the broader community – you – in being welcoming and supportive of inclusion, signals to children and adults with intellectual disabilities and their families that they’re not alone or forgotten.  

Our Advocates and Inclusive Education Consultants continue to partner with schools and school districts who are committed to ensuring the benefits of inclusive classrooms are realized for every student.    

Our Family Managed Supports Resource Centre continues to provide opportunities for families to dream and act in the pursuit of an inclusive life for their family member, even in the face of innumerable challenges. We help families access opportunities for their children to be fully included in community recreation and leisure – the experiences of childhood that enrich our lives and create lasting friendships.   

Thanks to the incredible support of generous donors we’ve been able to continue to offer our annual Family Leadership Series and Family Conference.  

We continue to partner with Alberta’s Rotary Districts and the business community to create inclusive employment opportunities, with over 930 jobs created to date. Jobs that provide not only greater financial security, but also purpose and belonging.   

Our partnerships with post-secondary institutions create life-changing opportunities for friendship, growth, and career development. Opportunities that result in remarkable outcomes, with approximately 80% of students going on to paid employment.    

While we persist and continue to make a positive difference thanks to your support, the reality overall is that life is getting more difficult for children and adults with intellectual disabilities and their families.  

My alarm, and that of Inclusion Alberta, is rooted in what we see and hear every day as families and individuals reach out in ever growing desperation.   

So, in the coming year, I’d like you to think about your own lives, and how in your neighbourhoods, places of work, worship, recreation, education, you and your friends and colleagues can create welcoming spaces of belonging for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. To turn outward rather than inward. To cultivate an abundance of belonging particularly for those who are continually having to contest barriers and the despair this creates because they happen to have a disability. It is these actions that provide hope, and the strength to persevere in the face of the ongoing devaluation and marginalization of people with intellectual disabilities.  

Our hope lies, and always has, in families, in community, and in the courage to speak out against injustice. But we cannot do it alone. The demands have never felt greater; the call to action never more urgent. The voices of individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families are not being heard. To change the growing injustice and devaluation experienced by children and adults with intellectual disabilities and their families—and it must change—we must all speak up. And for people to feel heard, and to know their lives hold value and meaning, we need community and our allies to stand with us; to raise their voices alongside ours. Will you join us and help build an irresistible force for change—one that ensures children and adults with intellectual disabilities have the supports, means and opportunities to ensure a life of inclusion and belonging? 

Tremendous progress is possible when hope is sustained, and communities work together to create lives of possibility and inclusion. I hope you will continue to join us in the new year in expanding these possibilities for thousands more children and adults with intellectual disabilities and their families.    

From all of us at Inclusion Alberta, I wish you and your family a peaceful holiday season and all the very the best now and through the new year.  

-Trish Bowman, Inclusion Alberta CEO