Health and Wellbeing in Developmental Disabilities

Jordan Smelley, a Mental Health Peer Specialist who serves as the IDD Peer Support Specialist on Integral Care’s Transition Support Team and who personally lives with proprioceptive and tactile dysfunction, offers a lived-experience perspective on supporting neurodivergent individuals. Participants will learn to recognize and interpret sensory-seeking and avoidant behaviors often misunderstood or mislabeled in mental health and recovery settings. The session emphasizes trauma-informed, strengths-based approaches and provides practical strategies to improve peer interactions, reduce stigma, and create inclusive environments. It also shows how unmet sensory needs can hinder recovery and increase vulnerability to bullying, exploitation, re-traumatization, and misdiagnosis.

Prolonged hospital stays for individuals with a dual diagnosis (developmental disability and mental health challenges) significantly impact quality of life and strain health system capacity. CAMH, Reena, and Surrey Place developed a collaborative model to transition individuals who had lived at CAMH long-term due to a lack of community solutions. This session will explore lessons learned, highlight community successes, and invite participant dialogue. Emphasis will be placed on next steps and advocacy to replicate effective models across regions, aiming to improve outcomes and reduce unnecessary hospitalizations for this underserved population.

This interactive session shares our agency’s journey implementing and customizing HealthMatters to meet local needs, highlighting outcomes such as improved physical activity, wellbeing, and self-determination. Through multimedia presentations, participant stories, and interactive games, attendees will explore program structure, teaching tools, and strategies for sustaining engagement through community partnerships. The session offers practical insights on overcoming implementation challenges, fostering staff development, and supporting lifelong wellness for individuals with developmental disabilities.

Additional authors: Liana Giacoboni (Research Assistant, Education and Skills, Conference Board of Canada); Tanzeela Faisal (Research Associate, Education and Skills, Conference Board of Canada)

This presentation reports on a national study exploring self-employment as an underexamined pathway for Canadians with developmental disabilities. Drawing on qualitative data from 146 participants, including 76 neurodivergent entrepreneurs and 70 self-employment stakeholders, the study found that self-employment often arises both from exclusion in traditional workplaces and from its potential to provide autonomy and values-aligned work. Key challenges include executive functioning demands, limited access to capital, and non-inclusive supports. Recommendations highlight inclusive, neurodivergent-led advisory and leadership mechanisms, flexible funding, and neuroinclusive mentorship to expand employment opportunities and foster equity.

Additional authors: Melissa Childs (Program Director, Dartmouth Adult Services Centre)

Research shows that adults with developmental disabilities face violence and abuse at a higher rate than the general population. The Women’s Place Resource Centre ran a pilot project to address this issue. This workshop will review successful tools and best practices learned from the project, such as how to have empowering conversations, examples of inclusive activities, and the importance of peer support. A participant from the project will offer his feedback and suggestions his group made for the design of the program.

This 60-minute workshop explores the development of a harm reduction program designed for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), with a focus on culturally relevant engagement in both Northern Ontario and Toronto. People with IDD who use substances often face barriers to care—services may not be accessible, culturally safe, or responsive to their communication and support needs. Through collaboration with Indigenous and urban service providers, this model seeks to bridge these gaps by centering lived and living experience, cultural context, and person-centered practices.

Supporting the mental health of individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) is crucial but service providers may lack the skills and resources to provide high quality care. In this workshop, we will share data from a recent study on current capacity and support needs of mental health inpatient and outpatient programs to support patients with IDD and present a novel model, the Adult Neurodevelopmental Consult Liaison (ANCL) service, as one potential solution. Our panel, including researchers, clinicians and a family member, will each share perspectives on current gaps and solutions to support the mental health of adults with IDD.

TBD (Details Coming Soon)

Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) experience high rates of unmet health needs and face barriers accessing consistent primary care. This workshop explores practical, scalable models emerging from Ontario that integrate Developmental Services and primary care to improve health outcomes. Presented by: will share lessons from collaborative pilots and partnerships between family physicians, interprofessional primary care teams, and community agencies. Participants will learn how these approaches foster team-based care, enhance continuity, and strengthen providers’ ability to support complex needs, offering insights adaptable across Canada to advance equitable, integrated care for people with IDD.

The growing aging population of persons with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) could benefit from more appropriate and accessible frailty measures than existing ones, especially given the earlier, higher rates and greater severity of frailty. This workshop describes an innovative screening tool to identify frailty characteristics from an accumulation of deficits perspective and helps interdisciplinary teams proactively monitor the needs of persons with IDD and their circles of support. Evidence from Brehmer-Rinderer et al. (2013) and McKenzie et al. (2015) informed tool development. This screening tool can help highlight a person’s risks, inform goals of care, and lead to quality-of-life improvements.

People with developmental disabilities have faced a long history of discrimination that may have detrimental impacts on opportunities to thrive in parenting roles. This workshop presents the findings of a focus group study detailing the experiences and needs of 28 parents with developmental disabilities. This interactive workshop led by a parent with lived experience invites participants to reflect on the findings and considerations for policy and practice to enhance thriving among parents with intellectual disabilities.

TBD (Details Coming Soon)

Canada has an opportunity to do more than patch holes in a broken disability support system. We can create an entirely new social and economic infrastructure that goes far beyond the Canada Disability Benefit and other Strategies. We can harness the talents of millions of Canadians with disabilities, level the field between urban, rural, remote and Indigenous populations, free families from forced exits from the workforce to become unpaid caregivers, drive long-term economic returns, create careers, have stronger tax revenues and reduced systemic costs. We can do this by way of a publicly funded National Disability Insurance Plan.

A specialized home care team in Ontario has successfully provided essential health care to adults with developmental disabilities in family homes, their own homes, and agency settings. This model shows how dedicated teams with expertise in this population can enhance care access and outcomes. When needs exceed what home care can provide—or when families are unaware of available supports—long-term care (LTC) may be considered. However, without appropriate assessment, transition planning, and ongoing supports, LTC placement poses risks. Ontario’s guidelines support informed decision-making and can serve as a model across Canada to ensure safe, appropriate care for this vulnerable population

Additional authors: Cherith Sedgewick (Consultant Physical Therapist, Alberta Health Services); Marita Monahan (Consultant Occupational Therapist, Alberta Health Services); Christopher S. Nichol (Consultant Physician, Smith Clinic Camrose Alberta); Tamara Armitage (Supervising Administrator WDACS)

This presentation introduces a visionary model of exercise prescription tailored for adults with disabilities, grounded in the inclusive philosophy of “Fitness for Every Body.” It emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration among kinesiology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, nursing, behavioral health, and medical care to address the physical, cognitive, and emotional dimensions of wellness. By integrating foundational exercise science with personalized strategies, this approach empowers clinicians to co-create accessible, sustainable fitness plans that enhance function, mental health, and quality of life. The model redefines exercise as a therapeutic tool, fostering equity and engagement across diverse abilities and clinical settings.

Additional authors: Kathryn Primrose

This panel presentation shares authentic stories from three women—Nicole Flynn, Yvonne Spicer, and Theresa Somerton—navigating the health care system with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Through lived experience, we highlight barriers such as diagnostic overshadowing, poor communication, and harmful assumptions. We also share solutions, including plain language, respectful listening, individualized care, and recognizing us as experts of our own health. Our session challenges health care professionals to move beyond labels and embrace inclusive practices that improve outcomes and wellbeing for all.