Victoria - Welcome, can you believe we are coming to the end of this  course? I'm almost sad to see you go but I'm really excited to see you keep  going. The learning doesn't stop just because this course has stopped. 

I am praying that people with disabilities and their families are now going to be  coming into your life and you're going to have new excitement for that, you're  going to be prepared, you're going to welcome that, you're going to invite people into your community who have disabilities to speak, to present, to share, to help  you all grow better as a richer community. So I want to talk now about equipping  others. I focus quite a bit in this course and Barb and I have kind of been  pouring ideas into you and a few times we've said, you know, for your volunteers or as you're training others or if this isn't your area of expertise or your area of  ministry, but now I want to focus specifically on how you can now equip others in your community wherever you are in leadership or just in your position in the  community. So let's talk about this a little bit. We've brought up the puzzle piece  perspective, we've talked about those things, so I want to encourage you to  keep all of the pieces together. 

So if you can create some kind of visual within your community to have this  conversation and that might be puzzle pieces, you actually do a puzzle together  and maybe you even glue it together and have it on display somewhere or  maybe you have cutouts of puzzle pieces and you're going to describe your  greens and your pinks and you're going to show a display of your community as  one big puzzle. Have that conversation and talk about these things or maybe  you use these paper chains like we sometimes do to celebrate holidays or to  count down the days till Christmas and each one of us is a link in the chain  and maybe each one of these gets a name on it or we color it or we decorate it  with things that are meaningful to us and about us and we create a tapestry or  even like a chain link something that has all of us connected but the idea is that  we show that we are all valuable pieces, we are all interconnected, we need one another. And so have that conversation, use the position you have in leadership  to show this in some way visually and by engaging others in the conversation  that we keep all of the pieces together and so as you talk about that I want you  to think about how can you literally keep all the pieces together so that you are  not separating or segregating people based on their abilities or disabilities so  that wheelchair users are over here and people with intellectual disabilities are  over here and neurotypical people are over here, right? God has created each  one of us distinctly, differently, uniquely and he has designed us to come  together in unity as pieces of the puzzle and so how can you maintain that unity  all together?

Now we talked in that section on behavior that sometimes you do need to  separate for someone's safety, maybe for someone's health, right? You need a  scent-free zone, maybe you need a quiet zone for people, there are a variety of  reasons where you might need areas that people can go for a time but I would  urge you to always have the goal that everyone come back together as much as possible. We do best when we are with one another so maintain withness, keep  all of the pieces together. 

Now I want to let you hear from Barb now a little clip from her talking about a  book that she wrote many years ago, it's actually not in publication anymore,  you might still be able to get a copy of it but she talks about the helpfulness of  providing information about an area of disability so that you can inform the peers and this is where we talk about equipping others, right? So informing peers and  just as we've done throughout this course to give you a little taste of some  different areas of disability, not that you are now an expert in any one of them,  but to give people a little taste of what it means to have these disabilities,  right? So some of those one-pagers that I've referred to over the course of this  class so that you have an idea of what it means to have Down Syndrome,  Cerebral Palsy, a traumatic brain injury, whatever it might be, so providing  information in a dignifying way so that you're supporting peer interaction. So watch this little clip from Barb as she shares about that process. 

Barb - One of the books that I wrote is called Helping Kids Include Kids with  Disabilities and I have several lesson plans in that book with permission and  again helping kids so this is more for children and youth settings but it's filled  

with three parts. The first part in several different areas of disability says, okay,  here's a fact sheet about what is, you know, a hearing difference, what is autism, what is an intellectual disability and it just is a short description because I know,  having been Children's Ministry Director, that if I took that piece of paper I could  give it to one of my volunteers, it's only one page, they would read it and  they would have a general understanding of what that is. Then the next part of  each section is a lesson plan that you could use to teach peers about a  particular individual. Now there are some in general things in the book as well  but it's pretty much set up to be specific. 

So if I know that Anna, who happens to have Down syndrome, is going to be  part of this group, I want to teach about that, I want the kids to delight in Anna  and in that specific thing called Down syndrome. We're quick to do that and we  do that with Anna in the room because we're not putting her down, we're not  calling her an all pink person, we're calling her part of the group and delighting in the way that God has created her and calling on the peers to be part of Anna's  life. So anyway, one of the lessons that I've used in there has car keys or a set 

of keys at least and it goes something like this and I will apply this to the  kindergarten student I did this with who happens to have autism but again there  are lesson plans for a variety of different disability areas so that you can pull one that works. 

Actually the key one works with a variety of disability areas too, I just believe in  the book I've tied it to a child with autism. So again we had trained the leaders to know about that but I went in to do a lesson and it went something like this. All  right boys and girls, I want to ask you this question. 

I want to know when babies are born, do they have their crying key? You don't  need to explain much more about keys than that. Do they know how to cry? Do they have their key for crying? Oh yeah, you know and I just my mom had a  baby and she cries all the time, right? So they know that. 

Then I'll say a few other examples, I might say do they have their eating pizza  key? Oh no, they don't know. Sometimes God gives us keys for things right  away and sometimes we have to wait to get that key until a little bit later. 

So at that point you know we've gone through some examples and then I'll say  you know what I wanted to introduce you to somebody in this classroom. In fact  I wrote a really big word up over here and I wonder is there anybody here who  

knows how to read that word? Now clearly, although he didn't know what it  meant, my friend Scott knew how to read that word and there was not one other  kindergartner who knew how to do that. 

So Scott clearly just called out the word and read it and all of the kids are like  oh. So that was a pretty amazing thing. I've done this with children with Down  syndrome and often make note of the fact that that individual can talk on the  bottom of her foot like a telephone or both feet at the same time depending  because of the the flexibility and the like. 

So anyway I find that that gift that we can highlight. But for for Scott it was  definitely the reading. I said that's right you know what Scott already has his  reading key and as you go through this year you might get your reading key too. I'm excited to hear about that. So and if you need any help with a word you  could ask Scott because he already has his reading key. How many of you know how to play on the playground? 

Well you know we we went through that and do you have your playground  key? Yeah they knew how to do that. I said you know what Scott's never had a  chance to play on the playground before.

He's not really had friends at a school before so I think I'm excited because he  might get his playground playing key from you here. So that was the end of the  discussion. The third part and I'm so glad it was there because I'm giving you a  

real live example is a letter to parents of peers that can be adapted because we  know that kids go home with stories and they might go to Sunday school go  home with stories whatever that might be and that indeed with parents  permission Scott's parents permission we sent this letter home to the other  classmates. 

It was a wonderful day a lesson but the very next day I was so convinced this  was the right thing to do to give information to the teacher to give and the  helpers in the class to give information to the peers in the class and to give  information to the parents because the next time they met sure enough down I  saw coming down the hallway here is Scott being hauled by another  kindergartner who has a bite mark here with blood dripping off his arm calm as  could be. 

Now if you've been with kindergartners who get bit they are never calm but this  kiddo was calm he pulled Scott over to me and says I think we need to find  Scott's no biting key. Again an amazing thing that had happened he realized  through this filter that Scott wasn't being mean he just didn't have his key for not  biting. Now clearly we discovered that key quite quickly for Scott but it was this  incredible testimony to information and I think there are times when we will want  to highlight an individual we might want to highlight autism or or the building  blocks that God uses in someone with Down syndrome as kids ask questions  again we are giving information about a specific individual. 

I often relate that to my own hearing loss and what I've gone through. I will  sometimes say if I'm in a room or with people for a significant amount of time I  might say to them you know what there will be a time when I might you know  you might say something and I might not answer you. The reason for that is  because I don't hear well in this ear and sometimes my hearing aid isn't all that  helpful either so please tap me on the shoulder get my right because if I don't  say that there are a couple of possibilities a person might say my name if I'm  leading a conference and they go oh man it was probably a horrible question  because she didn't even respond to me right so they might misinterpret what it is that I just did and ignoring their comment. Another response for somebody might be boy that lady sure is a snot she thinks she's all that you know here I give my  comments and she doesn't even respond who does she think she is. I don't  want either one of those reactions because neither one are accurate.

I would rather tell people about my hearing loss because then they can  accurately interpret what's going on. People ask that too you know is it okay to  tell people about your dad and dementia well you know what they're already  going to notice that something's different about dad. I would rather equip people  with the information that they need to interpret what it is they see goes back to  passing out those eyeglasses those puzzle piece eyeglasses that we have  shown from time to time. 

So think about that would you rather pass out information to allow people to best interpret what they see to allow that student to best say oh my goodness I think  we need to find Scott's no biting key to allow the parents to have read about the  

joy of having Scott in their room so that when that call comes home they too  have a reference for what's been going on. Information we have found over  many many years of doing inclusion in both schools and congregations is an  important tool. Remember you cannot give specific information out about an  adult or a child without proper permission. 

Did I say that loudly enough? You need to get it and you should get it in writing  because and sometimes even we've invited parents to give that  information. We've had parents put together wonderful books about their child  and they come and read that to the community specifically letting them know. So there are so many possibilities so many ways but my suggestion is that you  take the time you need to equip peers by doing lessons by doing things in  general or specifically. 

Victoria - Now Barb talked about her book Helping Kids Include Kids with  Disabilities and that's pictured in the center here but I want to share a few other  resources that could be helpful for your conversations. One is called Everybody  Belongs Serving Together and that is a book but it's also a free pdf and it's  actually an online resource so you'll find that link to that resource in the course  resources for this week. But what I want you to think about is information about  disability yes information about what the context can be absolutely but also can  you use stories a little bit to share about some things and so a couple of other  ones pictured here is a book called Wonder by R.J. Palacio and so that is  actually a fictional story maybe not the best way for some context but can be  helpful. Could you do a book study on Wonder or another book about a person  with a disability or a situation with a disability and including maybe a book that  Barb's going to mention in another video here called I Choose Adam or  something called I love this title If I Squeeze Your Head I'm Sorry that is a book  written by a mom and a son the son has autism and one of his things is that he  squeezes people's heads when he's saying hi and it can get kind of vigorous  when he gets excited to meet you and so he was he learned to say this phrase if

I squeeze your head I'm sorry and so this book is kind of his showing of things  about himself and about life with autism in the way that he lives it. So that it  helps other people to understand and so resources like this can be extremely  helpful in launching into the conversation. How can you have conversations in  which you're presenting information and engaging people can you invite people  with disabilities to share about their experiences and what's helpful for them.  When they're a wheelchair user is it helpful for you to hold the door to try to push their chair or to leave them alone right. What is it from their perspective that's  helpful? Can you use some stories and things to engage in that conversation? If  you need a few places to get started I've included a bunch of links to help you.  And so I'm going to show you just a few of the things in here. Now one of my  favorites is from an organization called Ability Revolution and a few years ago  they started creating these stories they called flip the script. And those are just a fun way to think about disability. And maybe if we reversed it where the entire  organization is made up of people who are blind and they're trying to have  someone come in who isn't blind. And so it's a person who's not blind who  actually seems to have a disability in this context. So a fun short video that can  be a really engaging conversation starter. So I encourage you to check out their  youtube page of their videos on flip the script from Ability Revolution and I put  links into three of their videos that are just a really fun place to start as well.  Some other things to think about and I think it's really important. As I said to get  firsthand information from individuals and Barb even mentioned this too right.  About knowing the individual. We've said that so many times. So can you create a page or a book about yourself or about the individual so that it's very easy for  people to share the information that is needed to know. And there are a lot of  different ways to do this some of my favorite resources come from an  organization called simply the gospel and they have some free downloadable  templates. There's the the child version, the youth edition they're all editable and so you can put pictures in. You can add in the information. With ministries is  another organization that has a great version of this. So if you want to subscribe  to their resources you'll be able to get at their all about me page as well. And  even if you simply look online there are all kinds of resources for how to make  an all about me book even for your child or your loved one with disabilities or  special needs. And even if you use the program canva they have ways to make  a one pager about yourself that some people use as part of their resume. Some  people use it as an introduction if they're the new kindergarten teacher right. And so these are a great way to just make use of that to share you know, this is  my diagnosis, this is some of the equipment that comes along with me, these  are some things that help me, these are some things that don't help me. Just  some information like that so to create a bit of a bio is a really helpful piece of  technology. Honestly that you can provide to people, whether it's printed,  whether it's digital, whether it's a one page or an entire book. You might need to 

decide what fits best in the situation. But creating those can be quite fun and  quite easy and I just want you to think about that as an option for providing that  information. And again we need permission to share these things publicly, or  with the community, or the congregation. If there are things that need to be kept  private, or maybe only on an as needed uh a need to know basis. maybe only  leaders get to know these kinds of things right. That gets put into a separate file.  And so how you learn the information matters. And what you do with it matters.  But I think widely sharing is extremely helpful. In fact, in my own journey with  chronic Lyme disease and how it impacted my body, I started a blog and I simply called it victory and Lyme. Because that was now my life. I live in victory in  Christ but I also have Lyme disease and that impacts my life in different ways at  different times. But I was very open about it because I wanted people to know  what was going on with me as I was so isolated from community in so many  ways for quite a while for years but also because I knew that people needed  information to know about what Lyme disease, what the cause of it is, how I how I knew about it what I was experiencing because of it, the treatment that I was  going through, and what that caused me to experience as well. And then some  things that people could do that were helpful not necessarily my own  personal needs but as a community. How could we raise awareness about Lyme disease? How could how could my family benefit from others knowing some  more things and even just knowing coming along with me on the journey helped  me not to be as isolated and lonely and for others to feel like they could engage  with me and respond to my blog posts and know how to reach out to help or  just to encourage. And so I just believe truly that the more we can provide of  honest information the better we are as a community. But I also really  understand that there can be needs for privacy and I want to respect that. And I  want to urge you any information that you have, make sure you have permission to share it before you share it. And that you have permission to share it with  all those with whom you're going to share it. So that's just an introductory piece  for this week of thinking about equipping others. So equip peers by giving  information and then next time we're going to talk a little more broadly about  equipping the community through our volunteers. So I'll see you in the next  segment.



Last modified: Friday, May 15, 2026, 1:31 PM