Inside Inclusion: A diary of working toward inclusion

What a delight to open Illume Learning’s 2026 Inclusive Schooling Summit with the fabulous Tim Cologon!

In our presentation, we shared what we have been learning from children and families about what inclusion really means.

Through listening closely to children, we have come to understand inclusion as belonging, participation, and being recognised as a valued contributor. One child’s words have stayed with me: “Inclusion means everyone …and I am a someone in everyone.”

Exclusion is never neutral. When children are left out, it shapes how they see themselves and their place in the world. It can make them feel invisible or as though they do not matter. Inclusion, by contrast, is how children come to know that they are valued. And importantly, children have been very clear with us: disability is not the problem. The problem is when our environments, systems, and attitudes are not yet designed for everyone. And, importantly, that is something we can change.

A central message in our presentation was the importance of truly listening to children. For too long, adults have made decisions on behalf of children without meaningfully including them. Yet children have strong, thoughtful perspectives about fairness, belonging, and what needs to change. What children ask of us is not just to listen, but to take them seriously and to ensure their ideas have influence and lead to action.

If there is one message I hope schools take from our presentation, it is this: broaden what counts as listening, and then act on what children share. When children see that their voices lead to change, trust grows, and they begin to see themselves as contributors and changemakers.

Children notice when things are not fair, but they also imagine how things could be better. If we have the courage to truly listen and to respond, we have the opportunity to create schools and communities where everyone genuinely belongs.

Thank you, Tim, for undertaking this important research with me. You are fabulous, as the feedback during our session attests to. For example:

@ShaZiggle​​ Tim, you’re an inspiration!

@SylviaJuhas-q4n​ ​Beautiful words, Tim. Thank you.

@SylviaJuhas-q4n​ Art is so powerful. 

@anthea8070​​ Tim’s words perfectly express why inclusion and individual voices need to be heard. 

@kimnuske7544​ ​Tim – thank you for such authentic sharing! This is very powerful learning for us.

@JamesWright-b1b​​ You are doing such a great job Tim. And you are really making me think about this topic. Thank you.

@TheRealMrBee2024 ​​Already heard so much authenticity! 

@jmoran-NJ​ ​Thank you for being so clear and direct about your message. Inclusion is important! Very powerful!

@ShaZiggle​ ​BRAVO TIM!!! Thank you for valuable work and time today!

@kimnuske7544​ ​Thank you so much Kathy and Tim!!! 

@ClaireBennett-m9w ​​Yes! Inclusion is NOT an optional extra

@sarahneal1385 ​​Thank you Kathy and Tim! 

@LeanneWoodley-j6d​​ inspiring words to open this summit 

@putezkoia-hamling1042 ​​Thank you Tim and Kathy. Outstanding insights and sharing! Great way to lead our mahi for today

@Anthea Thank you to Kathy and Tim for your presentation at the Inclusive Schooling Online Summit. I absolutely loved listening to you both. Tim, you are an absolute star x

Thanks to Rachel and Amanda for inviting us to join the wonderful team of people presenting at the summit!

What an amazing experience it has been, visiting New York with my brilliant brother Tim to present at the United Nations for World Down syndrome Day 2026! Here we are entering the Trusteeship Council Chambers getting ready ahead of our session.

And behind us, the beautiful sculpture titled “Mankind and Hope” created by Danish sculptor Henrik Starcke, gifted to the United Nations by the Danish Government in 1953. What a beautiful symbol as we gathered together against loneliness.

Not only did we get to speak to the world at the United Nations in this remarkable place, we also got to celebrate with so many wonderful people! There are so many more wonderful people who we met than we can include, but we did get photos with some people and want to share!

In this photo we are with Bridget Sneddon, the President of Down Syndrome International, who opened and closed the World Down Syndrome Day Conference.

In this photo is the Australian contingent at the United Nations! From left to right we have Michael Cox (Down Syndrome Australia Board Member and self-advocate who chaired our panel and shared his personal experiences), myself (Kathy Cologon, Associate Director of the Children’s Voices Centre, Charles Sturt University), Sheona McKenna (Counsellor for Development and Humanitarian Affairs at the Australian Permanent Mission to the UN, New York) and Tim Cologon (Researcher at Toward Equity, Diversity and Inclusion).

Here we have Tim, Matheo Santos, and Kathy standing in the Trusteeship Council Chambers. Mateo is a teacher education student at Montclair State University attending the World Down Syndrome Day Conference as the president of EPIC family group.

In this photo we stand with Robin Gibson, the Inclusion and Self-Advocacy Lead at Down Syndrome International, who was the power behind the scenes who made this amazing event happen. Thank you, Robin!

And rounding off with a photo of Tim Cologon, the fabulous Madison Essig (administration coordinator at National Down Syndrome Society), and me (Kathy Cologon).

What a wonderful place to celebrate World Down Syndrome Day with these and so many other wonderful people in person and online around the world! Hopefully these are connections that will grow. Thanks for having us!

One of the highlights of visiting New York for me was the chance to spend time with the brilliant Priya Lalvani in real life (or IRL, as the kids say!).

I really respect and admire Priya’s work in disability studies and inclusive education. We have read each other’s work and connected online at many different points in time – including when Priya wrote a wonderful chapter for the second edition of Inclusive Education in the Early Years: Right from the Start. However, with Priya working at Montclair State University (New Jersey, USA), while I work at Charles Sturt University (Bathurst, Australia), we’ve never quite managed to be in the same place at the same time in this vast globe.

Sharing ideas and plenty of laughs together was wonderful! Thanks Priya.

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A selfie of Priya and Kathy with the lights of a restaurant in Koreatown NYC behind us. We are both smiling at the camera.

Attending and speaking the 2026 World Down Syndrome Day (WDSD) Conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City was an amazing experience. One of the great highlights was meeting Sheona McKenna, Counsellor for Development and Humanitarian Affairs at the Australian Permanent Mission to the UN, New York.

We were very lucky to have a personalised ‘behind the scenes’ of the UN Headquarters as Sheona took us around to see the amazing, moving, and spectacular places within the UN buildings, before lunch upstairs looking over the River.

It was wonderful to hear about the work that the Australian Permanent Mission to the UN is doing, and to learn about the connections between the work of the Children’s Voices Centre (CVC) and the Australian Permanent Mission’s collaborations with UNICEF Australia. Thank you, Sheona! We hope to contribute to the important work you and the Permanent Mission are doing.

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Image 1: A photo of Kathy Cologon, Sheona McKenna, and Tim Cologon in the General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Image 2: A photo of Tim Cologon standing in the middle of the display of the flags of all the member countries within the United Nations building.

What an amazing day! Today Tim and I presented our research at the United Nations for World Down Syndrome Day. We shared the perspectives and ideas of children working together against loneliness.

Speaking from the Trusteeship Council Chambers, we shared what children have told us through our research. Especially children’s experiences of being left out, and the deep desire to belong.

There were 24 children aged 3 to 9 years old in our research. Many of the children, have Down syndrome. We listened to the children in ways that worked for them. We used drawing, play, movement, and art. We also used signing, writing, and communication devices. We engaged with art as a tool for listening to children in research.

What the children shared was both powerful and clear. The children want friendship, inclusion, and to feel part of everyday life. The children want to be accepted and valued Just. As. They. Are.

When the children are left out, it’s not just about missing an activity, it makes the children feel sad, alone, and as though they don’t matter. The children’s words and expressions reminded us just how deeply exclusion impacts a child’s sense of belonging, and sense of who they are in the world.

At the same time, there was so much joy and strength in what the children told us. None of the children wished to change anything about themselves and who they are. Instead, the children asked for fairness, acceptance, and to be included at school, in play, and in their communities. The children showed us that disability is a natural and positive part of being human, and that what really needs to change are the environments and attitudes that exclude them.

Today we shared the perspectives of children who experience disability across the world and reminded everyone that children are not only capable of understanding fairness, but of leading change.

As Tim said to conclude our presentation, “If we really listen to children, and take them seriously, imagine how much better the world could be”.

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A photo of Tim Cologon and Kathy Cologon sitting side by side at the speakers table in the Trusteeship Council Chamber at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

Visiting the 9/11 Memorial in New York City today was deeply sobering. Sobering in light of the history it holds, and sobering in the face of the state of the world today. Tragic reading the names etched into the memorial and bearing witness to the birthdays that should have been today, each marked with a single rose in memory.

Being at the memorial and remembering that awful day and all that came with it, brought back vividly a story of a little girl who’s father died that day in the twin towers. This little girl, Janie, was 2 and 1/2 years old. I read Janie’s story when I was researching children in emergency and disaster situations across our world. Janie’s story was one of a series of stories in a paper written by Donna Gaffney in 2006, illustrating therapeutic approaches to facilitate integration of crisis and loss in the aftermath of disasters, including 9/11. Janie’s story has never left me.

Following 9/11, Janie was trying to make sense of why her Daddy wasn’t coming home. The adults around her were doing their best to support her in this process. Janie’s mother had explained that there was a fire in the building where her Daddy worked and the fireman came, but they didn’t have ladders tall enough to save Daddy and the other people with him.

At play group, Janie found a little ladder and a wreath that looked like a coil of rope. She clung to these and took them everywhere with her, playing out a different ending.

My heart aches for Janie and for every child and family grappling with the aftermath of the seemingly endless crises in our world. The cruelty of the violence and its outcomes on people who are so removed from those who choose to wreak havoc is inexplicable – at any age.

It feels so inadequate to call for kindness. But perhaps, as we hold our children in the face of the world and listen to them, kindness is the strongest shield we have.

Gaffney’s article is: Gaffney, D. A. (2006). The aftermath of disaster: Children in crisis. Journal of clinical psychology, 62(8), 1001-1016.

Image description: A photograph of the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. The photo shows the never ending waterfall surrounded by and reflecting the buildings of the One World Trade Centre and other buildings against a blue sky.

What a spectacular morning to be in New York City with my co-researcher (and amazing brother) Tim as we prepare to present at the United Nations for World Down Syndrome Day, 2026.

Happy World Down Syndrome Day!

One of the most wonderful research projects that I am lucky to be working on at present is the fabulous ‘Changing Hearts and Minds’ (CHAMPs) project with my amazing colleagues from the University of Strathclyde – Dr Zinnia Mevawalla and Jane Caitlin, and from Glasgow City Council – Jackie Fulton and Margaret Harper-Abdullah.

CHAMP is a joint knowledge exchange research project working with early years leaders in Scotland to champion inclusive education and care. It is such a privilege to be part of this exciting, innovative, ongoing project.

We know that there are many barriers to genuine inclusion. Some of these include: persistent misunderstandings of inclusion; Ableism; lack of appropriate and adequate professional development opportunities for leaders; low pay and challenging working conditions; low professional status for early years teachers and educators.

The exciting part is that working together with early years leaders in this project – growing our inclusion CHAMPs! – is having tangible benefits for children, families, educators, teachers and communities.

A key finding from our pilot study shifted participants from conditional inclusion (“we can include children, only if…”), to a more confident, collective, and ongoing view of inclusion (“we are including, and we will keep learning how to do it better”). 

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A photo of a pin on badge that has the words ‘Changing hearts and minds, CHAMPS’ around a fist representing strength and solidarity.

Today I had a wonderful session with the Children’s Voices Centre’s (CVC) World Health Organization (WHO) research team. We are working together with the WHO as part of the Disability Health Equity Network to bring children’s perspectives to the work of the WHO and health organisations and services across the globe.

In our meeting today we had a fabulous exploration of the ethics of working with children in the ways that we do and reflected on the wisdom of the children in our CVC Children’s Advisory Panel. Together, the children developed ground rules for how our meetings run. The children’s rules are:

• Come and go as you need (it is okay if you need a break or to run around)
• Listen to each other
• Don’t speak on top of each other, wait for a moment if you need to
• Give everyone a turn
• Let the chair lead the meeting
• There are no right or wrong answers
• This is an important opportunity to tell the world what matters to children
• Have fun!

The image above is a poster from one of the children, who is 9 years old, illustrating the rules that this child thinks are the most important!

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A white piece of paper coloured green in the background with pencil. The paper reads, in curly handwriting: In the children’s advisory group we

• listen
• there is no right or wrong answer
• have fun
• share your ideas.
  

At the bottom of the page is a drawing of a yellow smiley face and the logo for the Children’s Advisory Group designed by this child, which has a blue crown with a yellow star in the middle and streamers out the sides.

Tim and Kathy Cologon smiling at the camera from separate online screens while working.

I had a wonderful time today working with my ever fabulous co-researcher, Tim Cologon, as we prepare our speech to present at the United Nations for World Down Syndrome Day. We are beyond thrilled to have this opportunity to share the wisdom of children on the topic ‘together against loneliness’ from our research.

Stay tuned for more about these amazing children and what we can learn from them as we work together toward a more inclusive world!