This work tested an ‘Intentional invitation’ mechanism to facilitate social integration in a small scale setting. Working with community organisations to design inclusive environments, we identified and addressed specific barriers to social inclusion and designed a series of interventions to foster engagement, from early intervention to in-situ encounters during creative community pop-up events. Intentional invitations proved effective in facilitating the engagement of people with disability. This in turn allowed for authentic interactions between all participants to unfold in a community setting. Data collected via participant observation and interviews reveal new perspectives about disability and experiences of togetherness. Our aim was to facilitate engagement of people with disability as a channel for authentic contribution bringing potential societal gain within our communities. Findings point to possible changes in professional practice that would encompass intentional invitation mechanisms under the Keys to Citizenship (Duffy, 2015) framework.

Abstract This research reports how families forged their pathway towards a ‘Benefit Mindset’ self-transformation. This resulted in parents creating a peer network, taking steps to pursue their development and to share their learning about empowerment and flourishing as they work in parallel to create better outcomes for their children with disability. Twenty-three participants (11 couples and 1 mother) raising children with disability or developmental delays attended the Now and NextTMprogram, which pioneered the integration of Positive Psychology in the disability sector. This disruptive program was launched in New South Wales in 2015 by two professionals with lived experience and evolved through co-design with the 300 families that have since completed the program (Mahmic & Janson, 2018). As participants grew their individual empowerment, hope and collective capacity, their vision to support other families and the collective mindset to make it happen emerged. These families recognised that the missing link in partnerships between professionals and families is their accountability in building their leadership. Participants learnt about identifying their signature strengths and putting them to work to build their family leadership. This research extends the concept of Benefit Mindset proponed by Buchanan and Kern (2017) about individuals to a group space by detailing how their Collective Benefit Mindset emerged.

Abstract Background: Despite the increasing uptake of family capacity-building theory in past decades, there is a dearth of practical tools to support its implementation in Early Intervention, alongside traditional discussion or assessment-based goal setting. We therefore expanded on earlier co-design with parents raising a child with disability or developmental delay, and tested a practitioner experiential training. Method: Thirty practitioners trained with a new tool, designed to engage participants to create an inspiring vision from which they develop authentic goals for their child, their family and/or themselves, and visualise their active part in achieving their goals. Results: Practitioners rated this experience favourably and registered significant training impact and post-training increases in empowerment. Conclusions: Training to facilitate such novel visioning and planning experiences offers practitioners a unique opportunity to build family capacity, disrupting a recognised power imbalance by empowering families with agency and setting the foundations for more effective family-driven relationships with practitioners.