Sometimes the entire point of engagement is not just the outcome, but the process itself.

It wasn’t until I began reading the conference program that it suddenly became apparent. As usual, I’d been flicking through the pages trying to work out which of the break-out sessions I should go to and saw the simple design, clear photos of presenters, and space for notes, when suddenly it hit me.

Everything was easy read. Not just a couple of special brochures - everything. This conference had been designed around inclusion.

I had, of course, noticed the theme of the conference was ‘Working together’ . . . but everyone gets used to ignoring statements like that because they’re never really true. Normally phrases like this are just bits of camouflage pulled around and serving as some vague genuflection towards disability.

But it’s not like that at the National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health. People with Disability really are at the centre of the centre in every way. This was particularly apparent at last week’s conference. It was built around inclusion.

It wasn’t just the brochures and the lettering: the experience of people with intellectual disabilities was always at the front and center.

One breakout session (titled ‘designing workshops that include everybody’) even had two presenters, one of whom is non-verbal. This was, incidentally, particularly terrific and informative. It was challenging, but by being engaged I probably ended up learning far more in that hour than I ever did in all those other sessions that I’ve spent dozing through in the past, as big-name presenters waffled on at lecterns.

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It’s important to notice, understand, and celebrate inclusion wherever it’s been baked in from the start, and particularly where it’s been so successfully achieved.

And this is where the Intellectual Disability Health conference stood out. The experience was seamless. Nobody could see where inclusivity began or ended simply because everything was inclusive.

Perhaps this was, ironically, why I found one session in particular so challenging.

But before I go on, I should admit who I am: an older white male with an acquired brain injury who’s spent years learning to shut up and wait my turn to speak. Focus on the end product, not the process. So that’s why I became frustrated during the final session on the first day.

The panel - three First Nations’ presenters - were discussing culturally safe and inclusive approaches to disability health. Now this is a vital issue, and one where the daily harm being inflicted does not bear thinking about. Perhaps it is intractable, and perhaps no single session could ever move us towards resolving the issue - but I was hopeful we could just try.

Instead, to my way of thinking, the process became derailed as people began narrating their personal stories. Rather than using these as leverage for proposals to move forward, however, proceedings became mired in individual experience. Solutions evaporated in the heat of moments years ago, time that could never be altered.

How can one ever tell somebody to just move on, when it’s obvious they never will.

Perhaps simply allowing people a space to reflect on their past is the real point of the exercise. After all, even if the session did result in a clear, three-point plan with simple bullet points to move the country forward, we all know the near insuperable barriers preventing implementation.

Maybe letting people speak is enough.

Nevertheless, and just personally, I want action