Open Future Learning

Real support should make friendship possible, not replace it. ... ID: Fionn holds a cardboard sign above his head that reads "I don't want support staff as friends" - a person walking by has stopped to read the sign.

It is too much to ask?

Great support doesn’t mean stopping people from choosing wrong. It means being there with them when they choose, and staying if things don’t turn out well.

“I found this job at a moment when my life felt dark. I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety since I was young. I’d just left my home health aide job that didn’t feel meaningful anymore. I needed something that felt more fulfilling." Read: facebook.com/OpenFutureLear…

There is a lack of men in disability support. But as Hasan Kreik shows in this video, the ability to provide great care and support has no gender.

Stereotypes.

The people we support aren’t ours. They belong to themselves. Forget that, and we stop supporting and start managing. Use people's names whenever you can. Use language that is person-centere: the person I support, the person I work for, the people I assist. Words matter.

If you want to support people, stop bubble-wrapping lives. Start making space for risk, for growth, for the dignity of trying.

Stealing from people with intellectual disabilities? Read: openfuturelearning.org/blog/ #developmentaldisability #learningdisability #downsyndrome #autistic

Trump and RFK link pain reliever Tylenol to autism - but many experts are sceptical. #trump #autism #TYLENOL

And pity is never respect. Respect stands straight up. Respect meets your eyes level. Respect recognizes the person in front of you without the sugar, without the syrup, and without the tilt.

It’s a gesture soaked in condescension, the nonverbal equivalent of baby talk. People don’t tilt their heads when greeting a banker, a teacher, or their neighbor at the grocery store. The tilt isn’t about welcome; it’s about pity dressed up as compassion.

The head tilt is the look many give when they meet someone with an intellectual or developmental disability. It’s that slight lean to the side, the softened eyes, the syrupy smile. It’s supposed to say, “I’m being kind.” But what it really says is, “I see you as less.”

Open Future Learning’s module The Fatal Five goes deeper into exactly this kind of issue. It provides essential, life-saving education for staff about the five health conditions, including constipation, that too often lead to preventable deaths.

This wasn’t just about constipation. This was about power. About a man with an intellectual disability taking ownership of his own body. About finding a way to stay healthy without giving up his independence. A small chart. A small number. A big win.

He had an intellectual disability. He also had constipation. And constipation kills people with intellectual disabilities every single year. Death by poop. It doesn’t get more undignified than that.

Here’s to valuing a life that doesn’t need to prove itself extraordinary in order to matter.

Here’s to the ordinariness of that smile. Not a miracle, not a lesson, not a symbol. Just a smile, freely given.

Here's to the man who gives you a smile once in a while. He doesn’t make headlines. He hasn’t been called inspirational.