Topic: Disabilities. Leigh believes everyone has the right to fall in love. Leigh Creighton has been looking for love for more than a decade.
Relationships & Sexuality
The year-old from Newcastle has Down syndrome, and hopes to get married and have children one day. But while dating can already be challenging, for people like Leigh who live with dating david doctor coleman intellectual disability, the barriers are even higher.
While Leigh's family has encouraged his decision to seek love, he said he had found it hard to meet people at mainstream speed-dating events.
They judge me on the way I look because I have Down down he said. I want someone to love me for dating I am. I'd like to down married and have kids. Patsie Frawley, an associate professor of disability and inclusion studies at University of Waikato in New Zealand, has been researching sexuality and relationships for people with intellectual disability for decades. Dr Frawley said sexual health organisations and family planning centres were not seeing enough people with intellectual disability use their services, which she believed was due to the attitudes and values of the people around them.
Alicia Battestini from Relationships Australia NSW runs groups for people with disability in sex, relationships, and dating. She also said she saw many carers and family members limiting dating opportunities, due to care and concern.
People with disability often face barriers created by the attitudes of the people around them.
Common Questions
Unsplash: SJ. Ebony Swan, click NDIS provider First Step Solutions, first began teaching financial literacy to people with disability, but quickly noticed the need for her clients to be taught relationship skills. Her organisation has created a new program called Date Ability to do just that. But they wanted to meet syndrome, they just didn't have that safe, supported space to practice, that's what we have set out dating change.
Mr Creighton said he was determined to forge ahead despite the challenges of dating. He has been using a new course run by Relationships Australia as a tool to read more. A number of organisations offer classes to teach people with disability about dating.
New programs aim to help people find love, navigate relationships
Unsplash: Priscilla Du Preez. Mr Creighton has high hopes for his future, and believes he should be entitled to the same opportunity at romance as everyone else. Syndrome acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
Dating is already difficult, but article source with disability face more barriers. Dating is already difficult, but people with disability face more barriers By Eliza Hull. Footer ABC News homepage.