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Last week’s National Centre for Disability Health conference showed that 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.