Civic action and social policy in North America and the UK have created a growing demand for knowledge of how to make the changes necessary to realize the promise of self-directed supports and build more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive communities. The Marsha Forest Centre and in Control have formed The Knowledge Exchange on Inclusive Community and Self-Directed Supports to assist in meeting that demand.
Both organizations influence a network of people and organizations committed to improving the life chances of people who require long term support. The Knowledge Exchange offers each a vehicle for reflection on the lessons emerging from their engagement in community and organizational change, mutual support, and sharing knowledge in person and through media.
The Knowledge Exchange will sponsor occasional face-to-face meetings that will draw on the practices of Appreciative Inquiry and Theory U to generate knowledge and indicate next steps in practice in response to questions such as these.
- How can people who require long term support, their families and allies mobilize to play an informed and active role in shaping the policies and practices that affect their life chances both in their own lives and for their nations?
- What accommodations and adjustments will make people who require long term support, their families and allies active contributors to efforts to create sustainable and resilient communities?
- What processes of change create the conditions under which responsible government authorities can realize the ethical values that shape self-directed supports?
- What processes of social innovation make it possible to provide reliable, trustworthy assistance that embodies the ethical values that shape self-directed supports
The Marsha Forest Centre is the administrative host for The Knowledge Exchange. Marsha Forest Centre associates John O’Brien and Connie Lyle O’Brien and others as required will facilitate and report meetings.
The Marsha Forest Centre is a partner in The New Paths to InclUsion Network, a project support by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union. The 
Network develops better answers to this key question:
How can we make sure that support services respond to the individual needs of persons with disabilities and help them live included in the community? What kind of training & learning is necessary to make this happen?
The New Paths to InclUsion Network brings together organisations of persons with disabilities, service-providers, universities and research centres from fourteen European countries and Canada whose common aim is to achieve change and support organisations to deliver community based and person-centred services for people with disabilities.
