The Christian Learning Center offers Christian special education to students in religious schools as well as employment training for disabled adults. It is based in Wyoming, Mich., but works with people and organizations across the country. Katie Barkley is the marketing communications manager.

Friendship Ministries in Grand Rapids, Mich., helps congregations work with people with cognitive impairments. Tom VanWingerden is the executive director.

The CEC- Faith Based Schools and Organizations is a network of those interested in advancing the field as to how children with disabilities are served in faith based schools and organizations. The chair is Dr. Julie M. Lane.

Bethesda Lutheran Communities, affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and based in Watertown, Wis., serves people with developmental disabilities. Its support services include religious education. The media contact is Julie Timm.

Joni and Friends is an international disability ministry and advocacy group in Agoura Hills, Calif., founded in 1979 by Joni Eareckson Tada. It has a number of field service branches. Melany Ethridge handles media queries.

L’Arche is a faith-based residential community and movement founded in 1964 in France by Jean Vanier for people with developmental disabilities. L’Arche is now an international federation of communities. L’Arche came to the United States in 1972 and now has 18 American communities.

FaithNet of the National Alliance on Mental Illness is an outreach effort to religious communities to enhance understanding of the value of spirituality in responding to and recovering from mental illness.

The American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities has a Religion and Spirituality Division. Its mission is to promote spiritual growth for people with developmental disabilities. Margaret Nygren is executive director and CEO.

Pamela Cushing is a cultural anthropologist who teaches sociology at King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario. She has studied the L’Arche community, which provides homes for people with intellectual disabilities. She has also written about caregiving, researched social inclusion of people with disabilities and studied the growth of disabilities studies programs in the English-speaking […]