The Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities
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Providing information, education, and training to build knowledge, develop skills, and change attitudes that will lead to increased independence, productivity, self determination, integration and inclusion (IPSII) for people with developmental disabilities and their families.

Bengt Nirje on Normalization

Produced in 1993 by David Goode / The Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities

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Finding Wolf Wolfensberger and Gunnar Dybwad

Bengt Nirje: I had done social work and some training work at that time and started the first club for mentally handicapped and so I could meet with young handicapped frequently and so on and listen to them and learn from them. And I also started out education programs and easy readers [Inaudible] on mentally handicapped. So I got more and more information. And that's when I [Inaudible] and then I was off to the [Inaudible] lecture. And then I was off to Brighton for the principle of normalization. And I was [Inaudible

I spoke in Nebraska and out in the audience was a guy called Wolf Wolfensberger. And we shook hands. Then he was one of the editors of changing tactics and then he read the principle and then Gunnar Dybwad told him he had better to go to Scandinavia, if he didn't believe me, just go to Scandinavia to see for himself about how, what had happened with this kind of background and point of view. He came over there and we got to know each other. And I went over to see him later on and then we came to Toronto by coincidence at the same time.

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The GCDD is funded under the provisions of P.L. 106-402. The federal law also provides funding to the Minnesota Disability Law Center, the state Protection and Advocacy System, and to the Institute on Community Integration, the state University Center for Excellence. The Minnesota network of programs works to increase the IPSII of people with developmental disabilities and families into community life.

This project was supported, in part by grant number 2401MNSCDD, from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. 20201. Grantees undertaking projects with government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official ACL policy.

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