In this conversation Michael Shevlin talks about the challenges faced by learners with intellectual disabilities in transitioning to third-level education, and the need for more inclusive education. Michael emphasises the importance of recognising the value and potential of individuals with intellectual disabilities, and providing them with equal opportunities for education and employment. He highlights the need for systemic change, including co-creation, universal design for learning, and mentorship, to empower young people with disabilities. Michael also emphases the importance of involving young people in the decision-making process in education and the role of good people in making this change happen

Resources from this episode

Inclusive National Higher Education Forum (INHEF)

Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID)

Transcript of this episode

KEYWORDS

education, intellectual disabilities, life long learning, skills.

SPEAKERS

Michael Shevlin, Mags

Mags  00:00

Welcome to talking about all things inclusion, a podcast where I get to meet and learn from people in the field of inclusion in its broadest sense, that inspire me. I hope they’ll inspire you too. Today I’m talking to Professor Michael Shevlin. Michael is professor of inclusive education in Trinity College, and is the director of the Trinity Center for people with Intellectual Disabilities. He has researched widely in the area of inclusive education and contributed to policy making in establishing inclusive learning environments in Ireland. Michael, after work, after following your work for many years, we finally got to meet in person when we were both involved in the level one learning programs development. We’ve had many a conversation, whether it be at events on the bus or over coffee, where you’ve always graciously shared your knowledge, gave encouragement, and talked with such passion and pride about the people you work with, both students and colleagues. That is why I’m so delighted to be chatting with you today about your work to support inclusion, particularly your work around transitions from post primary and the Trinity Center for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

Michael Shevlin  01:09

Thank you very much. Margaret, it’s my pleasure to be here today and to have this conversation with you, and looking forward to hearing what everybody thinks.

Mags  01:20

Michael, can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself, your background and what it was that led you to your work and inclusion, and particularly your work at the Trinity Center for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

Michael Shevlin  01:34

Well, I had a long career in education, so I won’t go through all the different details, or we’ll be here for a long time. I was a secondary school teacher for 16 years, and during that time, I did some work with St Michael’s House, and we linked in in terms of bringing young people with different types of intellectual disabilities into the school. And we started a program called fast friends, and it was really through that work that I realized one how little we understood about these young people, and that’s while most of them were non verbal, it didn’t mean they didn’t communicate. It’s just that we didn’t know how to reach them or how to understand what they were trying to tell us. And often it was my students that would tell me things and understand, give me an understanding of the young person that they were with. So I did a lot of work in that area, and worked with St Michael’s house research. We did an awareness program as well called Cara that was in the early 80s as well, and that was to introduce people with what was then called mental handicap, believe it or not, to an audience. And I suppose what became very clear was when we visited these young people in their sheltered workshops, as they were called them. One was how much they were like this, but also how they were separated, very much by the system that we had in place, which was very much about a special system for special people, but generally ended up being very isolated and fragmented, and also the chances of them leading an ordinary life were severely reduced. So that’s how I came to be involved in that. I’ve been working in Trinity, then in this area of general inclusion of children that have different types of difficulties in learning. And about nine years ago, we were asked in the school to take over the center, and since then, we’ve been working on developing accredited programs and linking into employment for these young people, your career

Mags  03:53

has literally gone from the person with an intellectual disability in school to the person in in with an intellectual disability, attending or participating and achieving at third level. But that was a very challenging journey for you to establish that, and there were lots of barriers for these learner, learners in transitioning into a third level College. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Michael Shevlin  04:24

Well, I think a lot comes back to how we think about these young people, and the difficulty is that it’s often with a health or welfare lens rather than an education lens. And it’s not to say that education doesn’t take place, but it isn’t the predominant force in their lives. And often from when they’re diagnosed in inverted commas at a very young age or even later, their trajectory was already decided. So there was a system in place, and the system was you went to a Special School or a special class, or you survived in mainstream, and you ended up, then on leaving school and post secondary, you ended up in a day center, and there you were meant to stay for the rest of your life. And I think many things changed that dynamic, but unfortunately, the system hasn’t fully shifted over. So the temptation is, well, we work within the health and welfare system, but if you start there, that’s where you end. You don’t really ever shift the thinking. And to me, my experience of working with young people always is this concept of learning without limits, this idea of Susan Hart and our colleagues, and this idea that we have this notion of fixed stability, and that it’s almost this fixed quotient of intelligence, and we all Start off with this, and that’s where we go, and that’s what we achieve based on that. And I always thought that was a very well. It’s very deterministic, but it’s also very pessimistic about the potential of education and our potential as educators to make a difference, and the potential the young people to make a difference to their own learning and to become successful learners. So I always felt that that was and it didn’t just affect youngsters with intellectual disability, it’s general throughout the system. And so we have the successes and we have the failures. We mightn’t call them that they know who they are, you know? And so there was no pathways established for the young people towards an education, stroke, successful adult life. And what we tended to do was we would do now, here are the work related skills that you need, but it was totally in a vacuum. And I know of one situation that happened relatively recently for someone who was very capable and their community experience was being sent down to the local center to buy a sandwich. Now that’s all very well in context, but does it add to somebody’s repertoire of skills to engage in a successful life. So a lot of our funding has gone into the health area, and some of it is undoubtedly needed, and a lot into what’s called rehabilitation, which I would have severe concerns about. I don’t think these young people need rehabilitation. I think they need, as we all need opportunities, opportunities and education and development and real progress. And I think the young people today in our center want a different life. They see the life around them. And I remember one day we were up with one of our business partners, ey, and they do workshops with us, and they were doing about taxation, and this young man who was doing his tax exams, was talking to him about, well, why do we pay tax? And it’s obviously for the general good, and we can give out about us, and we can say that they were never in that position, because it was always in a way where they were cosseted, or they were kept, but kept very passive in terms of decision making, and everybody else knew better. And so the the facilitator there is one of the people in EY, one of the partner said, Well, do you all have a mobile phone? Yeah, they all have, did they pay for their mobile phone every month? Yes, they did. And they took the mobile phone out. And I thought, Hmm, this is their world. You know, this is where their interactions are. This is where their connection with the world is. And who are we then to say, Well, no, actually, that isn’t the word you’re going into. You’re actually going to go this other direction. And I think part of the difficulty is that, once the system is set up that way, all the facilitators within the system, and there are a lot of enablers, there are very good career people there. There’s good adult guidance, there’s some lovely further education programs, lots of there, but there’s no necessarily clear access for these young people to make that transition. And part of it, I suppose, when we set up the program with with the ASI P program, which is a level five program, the equivalent of leaving cert was we wanted it to raise ambition, but we also wanted it to signify something, that these young people, achieving a level five are now capable of going into work, into employment. But again, you have to, we have to establish pathways in there. But also we’ve had some young people go into further edge. Education. And we had one young person went into higher education, because they could then say, I’m capable of achieving this, whereas before, it was always either at a lower level, which was fine, as long as there was progression built in from that. Unfortunately, that was not usually the case. So the systems we set up with the thinking that this is what is normal influences, then what type of pathways are available? So as I say, there’s a lot of enablers there, and what we’ve been trying to do is build on those and say, Well, how about these young people? You know, they can do well, given the opportunity. And more recently, there has been a recognition of that with the path for access program focused particularly on young people with intellectual disability. For the first time, they’ve been named, so now they will be counted, and now people will be accountable across the country saying, and there’s been a wonderful response in terms of different colleges wanting to to engage in this. So that’s where the barriers are really Margaret, I think, I don’t. Nobody deliberately sets out to say, this is only for but that’s the that’s what the consequences are when we set up a system that is quite exclusive and everything else depends on it, like, for example, when there was 1000 euro cost of living grant for students, undergrad students, our students didn’t get that though they were paying full fees. They don’t. They’re not entitled, at the moment to a Susie grant. They’re not entitled to benefit from the fund for students with disabilities. And those are central elements in facilitating access. And I think it will come, you know, I think in a couple of years, after this pilot, it will happen. Once it is recognized. And the wonderful thing is, Ireland is leading the way on this in Europe. You know, nowhere else in Europe as the government sanctioned funding for young people with intellectual disabilities to go to college. There have been some philanthropic work in other places have been individual initiatives, but this is the first time ever, so this is a wonderful opportunity, and when you meet the young people, you see they want to live ordinary Adam’s life like their peers, like anybody else, and that’s the ambition that they have,

Mags  12:49

absolutely and Michael, because I have been to the center, and I’ve been to exhibitions that the students have put on, and I’ve spoken to them and their competency and capacity to learn and to find and seek and stay in employment, if that’s their choice, is absolutely amazing, but that is hidden from general society, and it goes back to what you said about That notion of fixed ability. So because we have fixed the learners ability, we are choosing a pathway for them, which, up until recently, has not been third level. So therefore, we’re not preparing the students at post primary for when they go to third level. And I know this was a huge challenge for you at the beginning, where you and your colleagues were left with developing the skills that these learners should have developed in post primary.

Michael Shevlin  13:52

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we’re, we’ve employed, well, we’re employing two occupational therapists now, but we’ve won for the last number of years, and that was one of the reasons, was to look at that whole area of agency and self determination and many of these things, while sometimes they’re not explicitly taught in school, but as You have increased responsibilities and responsibilities for your own learning. Then these things emerge, and you begin to make choices, and all young people begin to say, this is where I’d like to be, or this is what I’d like to do. And it’s quite a you know, it’s never necessarily that defined, but that’s the expectation, and that didn’t doesn’t generally happen for these young people, because their destination has already been decided implicitly. And so that’s not to say that some schools and there’s some organizations like walk and others. That actually very clearly focus on transition planning and build the capacity within the schools. But, for example, special schools don’t have a guidance teacher. So, I mean, that is a major shortcoming, because they weren’t needed, because before they were told, this is the center you’re going to and you can, you know, and I think that’s where I was talking about, the enablers within the system. They’re not available because they weren’t needed, that there was never thought to be needed. So I think gradually those things have to change, like we what we’ve started running now as a summer school, three day engagement with college for 16 years plus. And our idea is to let people know, look, come along, see, is this something? And we want to raise this as a possibility, and not just a possibility, but a real option. It isn’t something that’s pie in the sky or something way up there, but this is something that’s really possible, if it’s for you, and it won’t be for everybody, but that’s they’ll get a sense. The young people get a sense of that. They have a bit of fun. They have a bit of engagement and Sports Center, they get involved in different activities. They even get to hear one or two of us doing a mini talk with them. But it’s very much about their development. And do they see this and also that? You know, there’s a lot of work being done now, and I know you’ve done a lot of work in this area already, Margaret around co creation, and I just think for the young people to begin to take an active part in decision making, whatever level that’s at about their own lives, this is what I enjoy. Like one of the things that struck me very much was how we, as you said, we make decisions and we decide, well, no, they wouldn’t be able for languages. No, no, no, no, they won’t do Irish, they won’t do French, they won’t do oh no, they wouldn’t be able for that. And yet, our students study Italian, and one young person came out the other day with a massive smile on her face, saying, I’m speaking Italian, and she’s exchanging emails now in Ciao, ribadeci and whatever, with other with with other tutors on the program. So that joy that someone can have in learning, we’ve almost excluded the young people from that obviously, when they need to learn about literacy and numeracy, yes, but we keep teaching them in the ways that they’ve never learned before, but we expect a different outcome. So this is where I think what you’ve done as well. It’s really important this area, universal design for learning. We use that as our our approach within the course, and obviously other people are much more okay with it than me. Can can talk in greater depth, but the idea that you present the learning material in lots of different ways, wherever somebody learns best, whether that’s orally, visually, auditory, whatever works, and then they demonstrate their learning in lots of ways, but it’s not the 5000 word essay, you know, which isn’t always a very good way of finding out what somebody knows, uh, unless it’s a particular type of exercise. But we tend to, we don’t tend to think about that as is it an appropriate mode, and now beginning, what’s beginning to emerge as well, somebody could do a video, you know, where they explain key concepts. And I think that’s the excitement of it. Our young people study business. I’d say very few of them would have studied business, and particularly if they went to a special school, it may not be available. They also study science. And we have a cybest festival. There’s a lovely cybest organization, and the idea is to enable young people to get a love of science. And we have a link with them. One of our partners is abbots, and they come in and they do mentoring and tutoring, and the young people take something they’re interested in, whether it’s music, whether it’s football, whatever, and then they look at a question, and then there’s a scientific angle. And I think, yeah, why should we exclude vast areas of knowledge. So that’s why our program is not a vocational program. We’re very clear about that. It covers a whole range of subjects, from human rights, disability rights, right through to entrepreneurship, the application of number, which is maths, but with. Call it that, and it’s about finding your niche. We do film studies, they do grammar, they do poetry, and why shouldn’t they be exposed to that? Why shouldn’t they have the opportunity? And they might struggle, but they’ll get there, and if it feels something, say, well, not bad at that, you know, but they might discover then something, this is something for life. This is something I love, I want to know more about, and that’s, that’s really what education’s about, you know. And that’s what excites me every day when I see that. And even if sometimes they’re given out about it, they’re still that’s not the normal human condition. You know,

Mags  20:44

absolutely. And you said something earlier on about this being a real option for students. And I think a lot of people, when they hear about, you know, students with intellectual disabilities going to third level, that they equate it to just another tokenistic action, or that it’s the equivalent of the mainstream special class, that they’re in that room or that building, and never do they meet with the mainstream college Students. And that’s not the case. They are registered students. They are going to to subject classes with support. But this isn’t this down the corridor special class situation. This is an authentic experience of life as a Trinity College student for them,

Michael Shevlin  21:39

yeah, well, that’s what we hope. You know, we’re still learning Margaret, to be quite honest. And I mean, now we’re working on CO creating modules with other schools that our young people will be able to take part in. You are a little restricted, because you have to deliver a program that’s at a certain level. And there’s credits, you know, all the different things are involved, but I don’t see that as a big barrier. We have quite a number of schools in English and law, other places that want to work with us and are very enthusiastic about applying universal design for learning to their own courses and what they can learn from that process, and what, how everyone can benefit from this. But very much, we have a young person who’s a graduate intern, and she’s now permanent. She’s a permanent part of our team, and part of her role is about, how do we engage with clubs and society? So as the young people can can become participants. They’re involved in a sports center, they’re involved in inclusive curriculum, they’re involved in different areas, and people are beginning to know them now. So we’re approached and said, well, would one of your students like to be involved? And we say, well, we’ll ask them and see what they think. And and there’s a recognition that they have, that they are experts by experience, but also that they have a real contribution to make to the main student, the main College community. And I think that’s the breakthrough, once it becomes embedded within the college. And, you know, I see in well less than five years time with all the programs that are hopefully going to be set up now, in the pilot, uh, phase two of the path four, it becomes, oh yeah, we do that program. Yeah. That’s like, we do the teacher education, and we do nursing education, we do whatever. We do science, we do engineering, oh yeah. We do, oh yeah, there’s another program so it isn’t seen as so exceptional, it becomes the norm. And then that’s when the youngsters and we, we have families come to us whose children are in primary school and they want something to hope for and to have an option and say, but there’s something that my child might be interested in, and that’s, as I say, why we summer school, we have a lot of outreach. And again, the idea there is put this in front of people, and there’s uncertainty, and there’s a lot of nervousness, sometimes apprehension, and then this surprise us all, you know, we also have, which is lovely. We have a couple of graduate interns working in Trinity. Now, we obviously have our young person who’s on our team, and she makes a full contribution. She’s on every team meeting, you know, just as anybody else. But the important thing is, this is where you need your human resources, personnel to be supported. She went through every single process that anybody else would do with tiny support. She needed very little which went through her probation. And she had her contract six months extended and then becoming permanent, just as anybody else would with these inbuilt, little, structured supports. And sometimes you need them, sometimes you don’t, but they’re there. And we have two other young people now who won in estates facilities, who’s on still continuing their internship, and somebody else in human resources, and we had somebody else for 10 months down in the business school working with them. So this is where the college can be. People become embedded. And it isn’t just about an academic program. This is where there’s a reality, and these young people are beginning to be recognized as workers and as making their contribution. And okay, you need to define your pathway. You need to provide the support. But we don’t employ job coaches at all. So we have 45 business partners who work with us. They provide work placements. They provide at the minimum work placements, but also six month paid internships, which are often extended. Two weeks ago, we had four young people made permanent. So this is now our next task. And you know, it’s funny how it all keeps moving. Because we were hoping for work placements, and then the businesses were saying, Well, you know, we can do more than this. And I have been just amazed at, you know, so many of the businesses, ey and plus smart of cap, I’m going, I’m not going to name all 45 but the level of the trail that you were mentioning earlier, there’s a risk that any of these things become tokenistic or do corporate social responsibility. They never even mentioned it. Yeah, the Hardy mentioned diversity, except they might be, you know, inclusion, diversity might be the first people you talk to, but the Human Resources team are involved the team manager. But what we ask the businesses for, and it starts in the work placement, is to have a mentor, a buddy, work buddy, and that’s some of you check in with us, not a line manager, but all the processes, the reviews of work. If you have a performance review every month, our young people go through the same and it’s explained, you know, and they’ve had to change a lot of their processes, you know, in terms of explaining things that maybe seem very obvious. And like in one thing, one of our young people ended up supporting the internship program in in EY. And what was really interesting was initially that of 20 interns, and of course, let’s say any questions. Of course, nobody would ask any questions, because nobody wanted to be seen as, oh, and asking for help. You know, this even from schools, yeah, it’s often seen as a sign of not quite failure, but it’s looked down upon, you know? Why didn’t you? Whereas I think what we need to do is open up that whole space and say, it’s good to ask questions, it’s good to make mistakes. Let’s learn from them. And it’s the same with this internship, because when our young man then was leading it, he started pointing out all the obvious things, that this is where the toilets are, this is where you go, this is what you do. And they began to realize, oh, there we are. There’s a lot of stuff we could do. They call it onboarding, you know. And I’m still smiling at that one, but because I just think of surfboarding or whatever. But what’s good about it is they now work in groups, and a question comes from the group, and you begin to see this is a much more inclusive way of developing their internships. So there’s mutual learning going on, but I the enthusiasm some of the the employers now want to promote our young, yeah, you know, so they’ve earned it. It’s not a gimme by any means. These are businesses. They make money, they’re successful, and they’re successful because they’re very good at what they do, and they find real work for the young people. And that takes time. And we have a brilliant Employment Coordinator, pathways coordinator, Marie. She works with our two OTs, Barbara and Emer, they work with the Human Resources team, the team manager and the young person. The young person is central to all of us, because there’s no point deciding that’s why we don’t have job coaches, even though they could be brilliant. But sometimes everybody talks to the job coach, they don’t talk to the young person, and how can they? They internalize the learning that people don’t talk to them. And often, when we do some awareness stuff with different businesses, we always bring along a graduate student who who are willing to because sometimes the question of what we talk to them about, and we’d say, like, well as the, what are the interests? Then, you know, what do you usually talk about, you know? And you just normalize it that way. And then they become part of the furniture. They become part of what’s going on. And that’s it, you know, and that’s the aim. And once the systems begin to align, and I must say, I have to say Simon Harris’s department, I have to give a call out to them and the Higher Education Authority, they have been excellent for the first time ever, I would bet, probably in Europe, a government department involved in higher education produced an easy read version of the top four call for funding. And that’s a real statement to say, well, these are young people, and they conducted a really excellent consultation, and the minister and his whole team in that department were involved in that, and they were listening, and that shaped the call as it should, about what’s important these young people what they want to do and They they want to move on into an adult life, whether that involves employment or moving into something in further education that will further a vocational career. But also they want to be valued. They want to belong. And I think these are critical things. These are really human needs that we all have. And one young person said to us, and I must say, I’m sure they may be, you know, they can happen in other contexts. It’s not compliant. But they said this the first time I ever felt that I really belong. And another young person in work and employment said this the first time I’ve ever felt really valued. So we all understand those feelings. We all have them, and they’re just as important for these young people as they are for anybody else. But when you hear that, you think, well, we’re getting some things right here, but we do a lot of consultation. There’s a lot of midterm reviews. The young people give us feedback on the modules, and we want them to have the Trinity student attributes, which are, you know, being good communicators, really being good people, becoming a good person, with all that involves, but also with the skill set and the capacities and a bit of joy in learning, you know, and the curiosity, but also saying, Well, I can learn. I know I have to work hard, and we don’t. One young person said that. One of our our students said that an open day says they’ll help you, but they won’t do it for you. And that’s the way it is, you know, but also they see their contribution, that they have learned, they’ve been enabled to learn. And we’ve had young people, you know, who’s who are off. They love their poetry, and yet that’s something which they’ve never studied in school, because, well, language would be too difficult. The concepts be too difficult. They’re not. It’s but our system pushes us that way. There’s a kind of drive in it where we set people up as somebody said, wouldn’t be great learning without limits. We’d be freed from these constraints of saying who’s top, who’s middle, who’s bottom, you know. And it doesn’t matter if we call the classes by different names, if we’re if we’re streaming them or banding them. Doesn’t matter if you call them Akil or whatever islands. Yeah, the youngsters know, and everybody else knows, you know. So let’s stop fooling ourselves and think that, let’s change what we’re doing and how we think about it, but engage the young people centrally and in a real way in that whole conversation. You know, yeah, and I

Mags  34:33

think Michael, until, until they get to programs like yours, there is no CO construction, there is no What do you want the school, with or without the parents are deciding what subjects they are and are not doing. They’re deciding they’re not doing languages, they’re not doing signs, but they won’t do poetry in English. And then they come to a center like yours, and their world is opened. But as. You said earlier that you’re not throwing them in the deep end. The little supports are there when they need them. So it’s not like you’re saying, Okay, now you’re going to first year English Think or Swim. It’s not like that. It again, is that CO construction, that pathway with the young person about what they want and what they need?

Michael Shevlin  35:21

Yeah. And then we have someone who’s worked just our work this year, as a kind of tutor who sits in on the classes, picks up if anybody is struggling. And it’s done very quietly. It’s not, you know, Nestle, oh, you need a lot of help for any of that stuff. But it’s seen as normal. It’s normal to ask for help. We all do it. We don’t call it that. We call it being colleagues. We call it collegiality. We call it all kinds of things, except we’re asking for help, and particularly if there’s something technological, I’m up there at the front asking for help. So, you know, and I think that’s to say, you know, I don’t understand it now, but I will, you know, or you know, it’s, it’s that process, rather than the product, and the focus in that and about, you know, being able to develop their, their kind of, just their understanding and they’re, you know, and everybody has a place in the world, but it’d be lovely for the young people to be able to decide where they’d like to be, rather than having it decided for them. And with these other programs, there’s lovely programs already just emerging. Lovely one in Cork, UCC, lovely co creation going on there. There’s lovely working Mary high and Limerick. There’s some working tu Dublin. But we see other places that we’re working with and establishing these and they’re they’ve emerged for a reason, and the reason was that young people didn’t have these opportunities. And no matter how good further education is or others other programs, and there weren’t the links in the businesses, there weren’t the other links. And also in third level, you’ll get all kinds of creative, different types of approaches. It’s less rigid, and people don’t have to operate quite within the same parameters that you have to in schools. And as a result of that, there’s much more freedom to explore areas and spend time with them. Rather than saying, well, we’ve done that piece. We need to move on. We have to you how many times a year we have to cover the curriculum? Yes, you don’t, you know, if you think about it. And when I was teaching, I never covered the curriculum, because it was all about engagement and understanding and how much young people then could demonstrate their understanding. And I didn’t understand all that at the time. I didn’t know what that was about, except I knew some young people aren’t learning here, so it must be something I’m doing as well. You’re not a mean. So am I going too fast, too slow? Am I not giving them enough visual cues? Am I not queuing them in or if they have a test the next day you do, I would always do four, the four questions the day before, and guaranteed nobody would fail if they made an effort. And was always possibly a progression. And I think that informed when I started to think about this, and I began to see young people well capable. There they were in sheltered workshops. And believe it or not, there are still sheltered workshops throughout Europe, yep. And they’re seen as quite a valid way of people spending their lives. That’s to me. You know, it just spoke of, well, could I use the word despair? Yeah, I think it is that deep. Because we all need a purpose, and we all need to believe and know we’re valued wherever that is, but not just in the family, not just in people that love us, but in that other world where we engage and as somebody said about one, you know, one of our young people and her brother said she has something to talk about at the dinner table. Now, in fact, I’d be tired of listening to her sometimes. You know, she never stops. But isn’t that life, isn’t that what we want? So I just think the kind of work that’s happening here, and I have to say, Trinity College, the other colleges, have been very, very supportive. I always say it takes a lot of people in the room to make a difference, because nobody on their own or one initiative or. An ego. None of that works. You have to see where people align and say, does that sit with your agenda? And that access agenda? Do these young people sit with that? And how is that? How then do we begin to realign the system? And there are a lot of good people out there. I’ve met so many good people in solace in the Education Training Board, city, Dublin, ETB, ETB, Ireland, so many areas, and they’re saying, we want the best for children and young people. We want the very best for them. How can we do that? And that’s always the question that good teachers, good educators, good administrators. Ask, how can we make this better, not to be complacent, not to be satisfied? And that’s why our portion is evolving, and it will evolve, and that’s healthy. That’s what’s good. And I think having so many good people in education means we can change, and having a very supportive department means that the means of changing policy and funding mechanisms can also begin to realign with this new reality that these young people are here and they’re not going away. Now that that door has been opened. You know, they’re built. It’s half open now. We just need to make it fully open, and different things will begin to align. It’s just be seen, hopefully in five years, as this is totally normal, yeah. Why wouldn’t we be planning for this? For a young person? Why shouldn’t they have this ambition? And that’s kind of, I see that as the future,

Mags  41:44

absolutely. And Michael, as you were talking there, you talked about these young people having purpose and having ambition. And for me, that brings joy, because, as you know, I have a sister with an intellectual disability who didn’t have any of these opportunities. But what programs like the Center for in Trinity College are doing is, yes, they’re creating young people who are employable. Yes, they’re creating young people who can choose to become lifelong learners and do other courses. But they’re also creating role models and leaders, and it’s putting representation into the education, where people in primary and post primary school can see, this is an option for me. Look, there’s someone like me already doing this.

Michael Shevlin  42:35

Well, I just think that’s so important, and that’s why, like, our young people are best ambassadors. And in fact, next Tuesday, in a well, whatever, there’s a policy seminar being run by European policy unit here in Dublin, and our permanent young person, former graduate intern, is doing the keynote. And so why not, you know. And she’s also led on other joint presentations at conferences with us. And that’s the way it should be, you know. And that’s up to us to enable that and facilitate it, and just give the opportunity and the little supports, though, this person needs very, very little, if any. And that’s kind of that, to me, is really what it’s about. And as you said, role models that it’s like any of us. You know, if you look at at the at the kind of cycle before, when it was young, women were excluded from science, quite often, maths. It took role models, and it took a lot of work to change that dynamic, and often people from different ethnic minorities, they weren’t seen as well. How would they succeed there? And then you have the role models, and people say, Look, this can be done. This is what’s needed. And I see the same for these young people. You know, when they’re already beginning to do it in their businesses and also out in that world. But What’s lovely about their advocacy is is that it’s based on something real in their own words. And the advocacy isn’t their full time work, you know, and I’m not saying some people may well end up in that area, and that’s fine, but I think it’s very much about having a real job, or a course, we had a young man there who’s just qualified as a coach with Dublin City Council, a sports coach, and That was down to a very partially principal up in collage to eat in fingers, who saw the possibilities, facilitated the whole process. And also Dublin City Council, you know, so that’s what I meant earlier, about being a lot of good people there, and they just need, at times, just to say. Look, have you thought about this or here’s a possibility and and then they go and take it. It becomes theirs. You know, we don’t need to own it. We’re very happy when that young man comes back and says, me, Michael, can I meet you for a cup of coffee? And here’s a little catch up on what’s he’s been doing. And that gives us great pleasure, just like in anybody leaving school, leaving college, and making their own way. And I think there’s an Irish Well, it’s not an Irish phrase. It’s not in Gaelic, but this idea of people coming into their own, I just love that concept, because I think that’s what’s beginning to happen. And we haven’t. We’re only seeing the beginning. So,

Mags  45:43

yeah, it’s so important. And I just think that that possibilities, you know, that that’s what all of this is about, is possibilities. Michael, we’re coming to the end of our conversation, and I’m wondering, do you have any resources, a link to a site or an article or a resource that our listeners might want to delve into themselves. Well,

Michael Shevlin  46:05

I think if you look up the Trinity center for people with intellectual disabilities, it’s in the School of Education in Trinity College, we have different resources there. We also have a Pathways coordinator in terms of schools and national that’s destin and his name is there, and people are free to call. We also have a mailing list, so let you know. We also produce periodically some little updates. We do a business partners update twice a year, which tells people what been happening in the businesses. We also have a some beginning, a research, little research newsletter, and also any other work that we’re doing, so that there’s a lot on the website that you can download, but get in touch and get added to the mail list and mailing list, and you’ll find out then what’s happening. There’s also a very good organization, a national organization, called in half. So that’s the usual, three W’s and dots, I N, H, E, f.ie, and that’s a coordination of all interested group people in different colleges throughout Ireland who would like either they had these programs and they weren’t sustained, or would like to set up a program, or actually have a program running. So that’s been running now. It’s now going to be chaired. We chaired it. Des chaired it for a number of years. It’s now going to be chaired by Dr Laura Slattery and Miriam Limerick. So all of that is is available, and people can draw on that as as a resource paper. And

Mags  47:54

I’ll put the link to both of those sites on the transcript for this. Michael, any final words you would like to share with everyone? Well,

Michael Shevlin  48:03

this is what I say all the time, and people would be tired of hearing it if they’ve heard me speaking, there’s only one world out there, not two or three. There’s only one, and we all need and should have our place within it. I’ll finish with them,

Mags  48:22

and what a way to finish. So on that note, there is only one world we all live in. It. I’ll say goodbye to everyone. Thank you so much for joining myself and Michael for talking about all things inclusion, and I hope you will all join me again, soon again. Michael, thank you so much for sharing with us today. Thank you

Michael Shevlin  48:42

Margaret, my pleasure, always a pleasure to talk to you until the next time we catch up. You.