Weekend reading and viewing: 2 - 3 April 2016

School: sorted; how to get there? hmmmm …
Alex McAuley, The Life That Max Built, 16 march 2016
So, having finally found a school for Max where he was happy, we started to settle down into a more harmonious family life. There were still problems: because Max’s school was some distance from home and there was no school bus (anyway, it would have been too much for him to have caught one were there one to be caught), he qualified for the school transport scheme. This meant that every morning a taxi would arrive at our house to collect Max and take him to school. Perfect, I hear all you frazzled mums saying, thinking of your morning panic as you try to get everyone dressed, lunch packed and out the door to catch to bus. Well, yes, it should have been. But unfortunately it didn’t always work out that way ...

Powering inclusion: changing cultural perspectives of Down syndrome and disability through inclusive imagery and messages

Catia Malaquias's speech at the 5th World Down Syndrome Day Conference, United Nations, New York.
... Now that we have achieved so much in the way of formal rights, how do we support and accelerate social inclusion of people with Down syndrome and other disability? How do we challenge the legacy of an entrenched history of segregation and dislodge unconscious bias that defaults to exclusion; the belief that people with Down syndrome should be somewhere else – in “special” schools, “special” workplaces and residing in “special” homes.

What will it take to reshape attitudes to disability and for society to revalue people with Down syndrome? ...

Indiana abortion law won't help the disabled
David Perry, USA Today, 28 March 2016
... As I watched my son dancing in the rear-view mirror, I knew a few things for sure. HB 1337 and laws like it won’t help people who have Down syndrome. Moreover, they aren’t really intended to do so. The goal of this law is to silence women and doctors by criminalizing conversations about abortion. People with Down syndrome are just collateral damage because that’s going to make the words “Down syndrome” even scarier ...

My son Maxwell
Molly Macleod, DSA (UK) blog, 21 March 2016
My son Maxwell was born on World Down’s Syndrome Day (21 March) in 2014. This year’s theme is #My FriendsMyCommunity and I’ve been thinking about how Maxwell has taught me about real inclusion and acceptance.

With a pre-natal diagnosis for Down’s syndrome we were expecting Maxwell…or actually, we thought we knew what to expect ...

Midwives and babies in charity calendar for Down's Syndrome

ITV News (UK), 31 March 2016

A group of midwives from Leicestershire has posed nude for a charity calendar to raise money for the Down's Syndrome Association.

The calendar also features two babies with Down's Syndrome, who are photographed with their mothers as well as playing with each other.

Joanna Proud, a midwife from Shepshed in Leicestershire, came up with the idea. Orders have been coming in from as far afield as Australia, Brazil and Portugal ...