Social Inclusion of People with Intellectual Disability: Providing Ecological Model of Social Networks and Community Participation

Social inclusion is an important goal for people with intellectual disability, families, service providers, planners and policymakers. Pay attention to importance of social inclusion, still remains somewhat obscure in this concept which lead to overlapped and conflict in its definitions. Legislation and policies concerning persons with disabilities advocate full and effective social inclusion and community participation. However, the concept of social inclusion remains unclear, there are multiple and conflicting definitions in articles and books. Comprehensive defining of social inclusion refers to interaction between two major life domains: interpersonal relationships and community participation. In recent years, proposed an ecological model of social inclusion that includes individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and socio-political factors. Four areas identified by new researches that ecological model of social inclusion can move forward: organizational implementation of social inclusion; social inclusion of people with intellectual disability living with their members families, social inclusion of people along a broader spectrum of disability, and the potential role of self-advocacy organizations in promoting social inclusion.