Best Buddies Leadership Conference Supporters Learn ‘yes, they can’

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- For most of their lives, many of the 1,300 people who were gathered in the IU Auditorium on Friday have heard the word “can’t.”

At the opening ceremony of the Best Buddies International Leadership Conference, they heard the opposite: Yes, you can.

“‘I think she can’t.’ I’ve heard people say this so many times,” said Rachel Lipke, an intellectual and developmental disabilities self–advocate. “I’ve had a lot of difficulties in my life, but I’ve made sure to turn the word ‘can’t’ into ‘can.’”

Opinion: Life's Lessons From the Front Line

Sandra Houghton is a self-advocate with extensive experience in systems advocacy, human rights and leadership development. She developed the Self-Advocacy Leadership Series, the first program in the U.S. that focuses on communication and social skills to teach individuals with developmental disabilities to become "self-advocates." Houghton currently conducts SALS training seminars at the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council in Quincy

Imagine a childhood without play dates or birthday parties, sleepovers or school dances. Doesn’t sound like much of a childhood, does it? Well, for children with disabilities — developmental and otherwise, it is more often than not, the norm.
Having grown up with cerebral palsy, I know what it feels like to be "different." Even within my own family I felt like an outcast. My brother could do no wrong. My little sister had the looks and the brains. But I was just the disabled kid. I didn’t have the opportunities that my siblings had — no friends, no social experiences.