06/24/2025
Let’s be clear about something.
A van ride is not a day out.
Not for you.
Not for me.
Not for anyone.
If someone packed you into a van, drove around for a bit, maybe looped the same streets, then brought you back and called it a "day out," you'd call that insulting. You’d ask: “Where did we go? What did we do?”
And you’d be right to ask.
But too often, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities don’t get asked. They get loaded in and loaded out, and that’s supposed to be enough. It’s supposed to be stimulating, enriching, maybe even a treat. But really? It’s just movement without meaning.
A van ride isn't a choice. It isn’t a memory made. It’s transportation, and when there’s no destination, it’s just time being filled. That’s not inclusion. That’s killing time.
And people know. People know when they’re being patronized. They know when something’s being done to them instead of with them. They know when they’re being managed instead of respected.
We have to stop pretending that busy is the same as belonging.
We have to stop calling it a day out when it’s really just a loop around the block in a world that keeps them outside of it.
If we truly believe in rights, in dignity, in inclusion then we need to start asking different questions.
Not “Did they get out today?” but:
“Did they choose where to go?”
“Did they feel welcomed there?”
“Did they laugh, learn, live something?”
Because people with intellectual and developmental disabilities deserve more than motion.
They deserve meaning.
..
ID: Fionn holds a cardboard sign above his read which reads "A van ride is not a day out."
