WDSD 2026: Together Against Loneliness

21st March is World Down’s Syndrome Day (WDSD). The theme of WDSD 2026 is: Together Against Loneliness.

The aim of this is to highlight the problem of loneliness and isolation among people with Down’s Syndrome or other intellectual disabilities, to empower people with DS and their advocates to speak up about what they need to help tackle this problem, and to encourage us all to think about what we, as individuals and as a society, can do to make education, workplaces and public, social and cultural spaces and events truly inclusive and welcoming to people with learning disabilities to enable them to fully participate in all aspects of life and to form the relationships and social connections that are so necessary for both mental and physical health.

The opposite of loneliness and isolation is social connection and belonging. To help foster a sense of connectedness and belonging, people with learning disabilities need, broadly, three things:

1) full inclusion in educational settings and workplaces. Not just being present and visible, but having the support to fully participate in everything, being given real responsibilities and a purposeful role, so you can become a valued member of the class or team.

2) to be actively welcomed and invited into community life - be that clubs, sports, places of worship, social spaces and events - rather than just having your presence tolerated. To be safe from stigma and prejudice in those places and to be offered the accommodations that enable you to participate as a matter of routine, and not as something that must be fought for and is given only grudgingly.

3) the opportunity to form meaningful relationships - family relationships, friendships, romantic relationships.

This is how the world ought to be. This is the world that people with Down’s Syndrome and their advocates and supporters have been fighting for, for a very long time.

But we are not there yet.

Progress has been made, but sometimes it feels as though we take two steps forward and one step back. There are examples of excellent practice out there, but they are far from universal.

As the parent-carer of a young person with Down’s Syndrome this presents me with something of a dilemma.

Yes, I want to fight for a future world in which people like Freddie are fully included and valued. But that world does not exist yet.

Yes, I want my son to have the opportunity to participate fully in purposeful, fulfilling activities and community life, and to form meaningful, equal relationships. But he needs those opportunities now, in the present, not in some dim and distant future.

So, what am I to do?

Do I, for the sake of future generations, insist that he participates only in mainstream activities, just to prove a point, knowing that it’s likely there will be a complete lack of understanding of how to fully include him and little willingness to learn or to try to accommodate him; where, with the best will in the world, he is not going to be on the same wavelength as the others and so will struggle to make any meaningful friendships, and will at best be tolerated or ‘nursemaided’, and at worst fall victim to the prejudice of others?

Or do I allow him to access the various clubs and groups for disabled young people that are available in our area, where he will be a fully included and valued member of the gang, where individual accommodations come as standard, and where he can form satisfying, equal friendships with others who are on a similar wavelength, and have the same kind of interests and maturity levels; whilst knowing that by doing so I am in danger of being accused of letting the side down, or even of being secretly in favour of keeping disabled people hidden away and segregated?

What I actually want is what is best for Freddie. And for other people like him.

Both now AND in the future.

Sometimes those two, apparently similar, desires feel like wild horses pulling me in two different directions.