Intersectional and Collaborative Approach

To achieve its vision and mission, IRIS is committed to an intersectional approach. In this context, intersectionality means that we understand both the distinctiveness of the experience of intellectual disability and how this ‘intersects’ with other social locations people with intellectual disabilities live within. It means that experiences and patterns of marginalization and vulnerability affecting people with an intellectual disability have threads of commonality with other groups who have been marginalized, i.e. other disabilities especially psychosocial disability Indigenous racialized, immigrant and refugee people, class, sexual and gender identity, etc. Moreover, people with an intellectual disability may identify and be identified, by these other social identities, e.g. as a Somali refugee, an Inuit person, etc.

Thus, collaborative work with these groups is essential to understand the deeper patterns of social and economic exclusion and to develop and implement fully inclusive approaches to law, policy and practice reforms. Our research and development process is dedicated to nurturing understanding, partnership and solidarity across these differences in order to help lay foundations for comprehensive social change.

IRIS has developed a number of collaborations in Canada and internationally, including:

• Canada – Centre for Citizenship and Inclusion (UBC); Disability Studies (Ryerson University)
• U.S.A. – Open Societies Foundations; Centre for Public Representation (Northhampton, MA)
• Europe – Bulgarian Centre for Not-for-Profit Law; Mental Health and Justice Initiative, UK supported by the Wellcome Trust Foundation; Centre for Disability Law and Policy, National University of Ireland, Galway
• Peru – SODIS – Sociedad y Discapacidad (Lima)
• Zambia – Zambia Federation of Disabled Persons Organizations; Mental Health Users Network of Zambia; Faculty of Law, University of Zambia (Lusaka)

Partnering with other institutes allows us to produce:

• Collaborative initiatives leading to global solutions
• Knowledge networks in key areas – legal capacity, inclusive community development, violence prevention and response

Local Safety and Inclusion Solidarity Networks (LSISN)

Saint John Human Development Council,
Institut National pour L’Equité -L’Equalité -L’Inclusion des personnes en situation de handicap (INÉÉI-PSH)
Across Boundaries-An Ethno-Racial Mental Health Centre
Inclusion Winnipeg
Warriors Against Violence Society
Nunavummi Disabilities Makinnasuaqtiit Society

The Accessibility Exchange

Advancing the Right to Legal Capacity

In its local-to-global initiatives to research and advance the equal right to decide and legal capacity for people with disabilities, New Society is partnering with:

• Inclusion Winnipeg 
• Inclusion Canada – Newfoundland and Labrador 
• Open Society Foundations 
• Fight for Right Ukraine 
• Bulgaria Centre for Not for Profit Law 
• Centre for Legal Resources Romania 
• PooranLaw 
• School for Disability Studies, Toronto Metropolitan University 
• Bank of Canada 
• Essex Autonomy Project, University of Essex