NACSPED 2007

Last weekend was the third annual conference of the National Association of Christians in Special Education or NACSPED. The conference was held at Azusa Pacific University, and they could not have been better hosts. The conference met in the beautiful Wilden Center, with the keynotes being presented by Dr. Rick Eigenbrood of Seattle Pacific University, and Mr. Steve Bundy, Director of the International on Disability for the Joni and Friends organization. The confernce theme was "Looking beyond disability," the implication being to see the person and not just the disability the person is experiencing. We had a total of 35 breakout sessions which were very well received by the 120 attendees. I was also proud in that at least 4 of our presenters were persons with disabilities. All in all it was a great day.

If you would like to join NACSPED, visit our website above, and come join us at our next conference to be held again at Azusa Pacific University, March 8, 2008 (we have developed a pattern of holding our conferences for 2 years in the same place before moving on).

NACSPED's mission is to ...
...facilitate the integration and participation of people with disabilities into the Christian community.We accomplish this change by:
-challenging Special Education professionals to exemplify faith through vocation
-providing professional development opportunities based on best practices.
-challenging Christian Special Education professionals to use their experience and training in the church.
-advocating for access to a Christian school education, for students with disabilities

We are also endeavoring to begin a movement of lay professionals to work to change their own churches, and make them more open to people with disabilities.

McNair
(fcbu)