Welcome!
Welcome! This section of the iBelong! website is for family members of youth with intellectual disabilities, and for their friends and support people. Families know that helping their member with an intellectual disability to build lasting social connections can be an exhausting and sometimes disheartening process, but many families have found that with the right support and strategies success is possible.
Susan Beayni - Importance of Family Support
Family support is essential for a young person with a disability. Susan’s daughter Rebecca, for instance, uses a wheelchair so she needs a special van. She needs help with planning get togethers. Because she needs space to move, it is often easier for friends to visit Rebecca in her home.
Download TranscriptEvery person needs and deserves to have friends—as does every family. We hope the videos, stories, commentary and quotations from other family members who responded to our Canada-wide survey will provide inspiration, ideas, and some useful resources for you to help your young person make and keep friends.
The knowledge and experience of families who visit this website will vary greatly, as will the gifts and needs of their young people. Look through the site for what may be useful to you. If you have particular success stories, please share them on our Facebook page.
Good Practices in Action
This part of the website highlights just a few examples of the many effective programs across Canada. Some are national, some locally based. We offer these hoping they will inspire other good programming.
Find Out About These ProgramsGetting Involved
This section is for people who might like to become friends with someone who has an intellectual disability. You will find suggestions and inspiring stories about the value of such friendships.
Getting Involved