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Reading to Better Support Folks with Disabilities

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Get Literate! Continously Improve! Ten Books We Like.

Provide better supports and learn how to talk to experts about people you care about!

Community Living is the best option for supporting folks with disabilities in their neighbourhoods. It's ethical, interesting and fun. If you work in this field, you probably care a lot about the people you support, If you don't work in this field, you might want to (hey, you could work with us!). Or you might want to volunteer (find a People First group and help out; that's an education in itself) or you might just want to make a new friend, who happens to have a disabilty. Here are some books that we like at our agency.

Spectrum reads. Reading is the easiest and most continuous way to involve oneself in lifelong learning. We support the folks we care about in literacy and numeracy development, and we also encourage our teams to read. We like to give out books as gifts, we read and talk about books, we go to the libraries, we write books and articles and one our newest ventures is publishing books and DVDs by and for self-advocates and about ideas that foster and support self-governance.

Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging We think this is one of the most important books of our generation. We are in the process of organizing a reading group around this book.
Faber, Adele. How To Talk So Kids Listen This book was recommended to us by our friend and mentor, Michael Walsh, because he says "It's the best book on training I know of, even though it's supposed to be about kids." It's a very simple book and the concept is basically that if one way doesn't work, try another way.
Falvey, M.; Forest, M.; Pearpoint, J. And Rosenberg, R. All My Life's a Circle. Using the Tools: Circles, MAPS and PATH, New Expanded Edition Marsha, Jack and the other folks from www.inclusion.com should be declared national treasures. This is one of the most transformational books you could read and practise. Get it from www.inclusion.com
O'Brien, John and Connie Lyle, Eds. A Little Book About Person Centered Planning: Ways to think about person-centered planning, its limitations, the conditions for its success One of the most significant and practical texts of our time.
Diers, Jim. NeighborPower We love Jim Diers and have been to a couple of his workshops, always coming away empowered and excited to be part of something big, yet doable. Jim's non-specialist take on disability is one of the most energising things about his work: "Wow, these people have some great gifts that we've been looking for! And we didn't even know they were out there!"
Perry, Bruce and Szalavitz, Maia. The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook Child Psychiatrist's Notebook--What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing I really love this book, partly because of the stories of incredible power, and partly because as you read it you keep realizing that you've learned one more thing about how brains work, or don't work, and about how family dynamics work, or don't.
Etmaski, Al; Collins, Jackie; Cammack, Vicki. Safe and Secure: Six Steps to Creating a Good Life for People with Disabilities (RDSP Edition) A classic and necessary text for anyone concerned with the lives of folks with disabilities, the networks that support them, their futures, and their quality of life.
Kendrick, Michael. Letting In The Light: Reflections on Leadership, Ethics and Human Services CRU Publications (2009) Currently only available through http://cru.org.au/books/LettingInTheLight.htm although we intend to offer copies through our website at www.101friends.ca Michael Kendrick is an amazing leader who travels through the world focusing on building communities, teaching people to dream and finding sustainability.
Briton, Derek The Modern Practice of Adult Education: A Postmodern Critique. Not a book about special education at all, this is still a great text about teaching, education, one's own growth, power and knowledge.
Lord, John and Hutchinson, Peggy. Pathways to Inclusion
Building a New Story with People and Communities http://www.captus.com/Information/catalogue/book.asp?Book+Number=945 John has become a friend and gracious colleague to us and we do believe this amazing book, recommended to us by Jule Hopkins, is one of the under-utilised treasures of Canada. A bit of a dense read and the type is too damned small but really, really worth it.

Here's our book on Amazon

This is a user friendly book about folks with disabilities and their networks, based on ideas they, their family and friends have talked to us about during workshops and over coffee. It is currently being used in colleges as a text for community support workers, self-advocacy groups and through a number of agencies. To learn more about this or forthcoming books or workshops, check out www.101friends.ca