THE PROMISE OF SOCIAL INNOVATION FOR SUPPORTING DEEP BELONGING

Supporting belonging in the lives of people with disabilities is complex work. This means there are no ‘silver bullet’ or ‘one size fits all’ solutions, there is little agreement on how best to do it, and it requires the cooperation of multiple different people and groups to make it happen. With complex challenges like this it rarely works to sit idle and say things like “if people would just…include people with disabilities in their lives” or “if people would just…be more accepting of disability”. Recognizing this, at Skills Society, we intentionally incorporate social innovation approaches into our work. Instead of wishing or hoping or asking people to change their behavior towards people with disabilities, social innovation brings people together to co-create solutions they want to be a part of. We also like that innovation approaches centre learning alongside people with lived experience of a challenge and strive to get the “right mix of the old, the new, and a dash of surprise”6, recognizing the importance of learning from those that came before us. In the next section we share some of our current innovation projects aimed at supporting belonging in the lives of people with disabilities.

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