Key elements include: social inclusion; active participation; a life of meaning; safety; economic security; accessibility and self-determination.
The family movement has been critical in closing institutions and other segregated facilities; promoting inclusive education; reforming adult guardianship to the current supported decision-making; increasing access to health care; developing real jobs; fighting stereotypes and reducing discrimination.
In those early formative days families around the world began to question the accepted wisdom that they should institutionalize their son or daughter with a disability.
[6] Following their example organizations for people with cerebral palsy (concurrent time period of the Arc), hearing and visual impairments, autism and other handicapping conditions were started.
Parents were also involved as parent-professional partners at university centers, and were given additional funds to begin cross-disability offices, and even family support agencies with preferential hiring practices.
The other was Dale Evans who starred with her husband Roy Rogers in a popular television western wrote Angel Unaware about her daughter with Down Syndrome.
Originating in Denmark with Erik Bank-Mikkelsen and Bengt Nirjeit normalization principles were adapted in North America by Wolf Wolfensberger.
Eventually with persistence, patience and ingenuity the government funded system of social, educational and health programs and services took shape.