Notes About This Year's Theme
This year's conference theme is, "The Power of Engaging with Disability Policy: Creating Opportunities For All." Disability policy profoundly shapes the infrastructure of community living, service delivery, funding, and the everyday lives of millions of people. Yet, there is still much work to be done to improve the quality of complex life contexts, opportunities, and inclusion of approximately one in four people who live with a disability and their families. Policy has the power to make a meaningful difference.
Our collective priorities and goals for this conference are to dismantle systemic barriers, protect fundamental rights, and ensure that attendees and presenters feel empowered - not intimidated - by the policy process. We believe meaningful and lasting policy change happens when people directly impacted by disability and those who provide essential support come together, raise their voices, and connect their collective power.
We are looking for researchers, policymakers, individuals with lived experience, advocates, providers, educators, and practitioners to submit proposals for presentations and posters at the upcoming conference!
If you have questions related to participating in the conference, please reach out to one of our team members!
Submission Deadline: Friday, Nov. 20, 2026
Core Focus Areas
Conference activities will be related to three core focus areas, which all relate to the overall theme. In addition to presentations and posters, you can look forward to other, more interactive ways of incorporating these core areas into your experience at the conference. Image credits and permissions.
