Acknowledgements
When we put out calls for participants, we received expressions of
interest from people with an intellectual disability and people on the
autistic spectrum. Though we are well aware that they have radically
different lived experiences, we worked individually throughout the
intervention and reported their results in a format that could be used
by policy makers and service providers.
We would like to thank our wide range of collaborators who contributed
in both the ‘doing’ and the ‘thinking’ about what energy can be
liberated during authentic encounters: the Think Differently Campaign
team who not only supported this project but also engaged in our quest
and made meaningful contributions; Anna Pye who initiated some of the
ideas on this project; Creative Waikato, Progress to Health, the
Hamilton Residential Trust, Gillian Ingham, Alanna Cranston and The
Network for Community Hospitality at the University of Waikato who
enrolled volunteers for campus encounters and provided peer-academic
consultation to develop some of the above ideas.
This work was supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Social
Development Thinking Differently Campaign under Grant MAD4-1081.