Support is Health: Recognizing Families and Communities

This blog was written by Maria, a practicum student currently studying at Western University.

October 29^th is the International Day of Care and Support. It’s a day to recognize the many ways people give and receive support in their families and communities. As a Health Sciences student, I believe that support is a powerful force for fairness and inclusion. 

In this blog, I look at how: 

• Support can impact your health. 

• Families can provide support. 

• Supporters need help too  

These points show why support matters for health and inclusion. By exploring these ideas, we can advance towards building fair and inclusive communities. 

Support as a Determinant of our Health 

Health goes beyond medicine. It is shaped by our everyday situation. For example, affordable food, safe housing, and quality education and healthcare all promote health. But there is another factor that shapes our health. It is just as important but often forgotten. It is support. Support has a big impact on people’s health.  

For people with an intellectual disability, support is very important. People can be supported to access things like safe housing, inclusive education, and real work for real pay. Support can affect whether someone gets the healthcare they need. Having strong support can help reduce loneliness, improve mental health, and provide comfort during times of change. That’s why support should be seen as a social determinant of health, a factor that shapes whether people experience fairness or unfairness in their lives.  

Recognizing support in this way helps us see health equity differently. Equity is not just about access to services or good policies. It’s also about making sure people have strong networks that help them to thrive. By naming support as a determinant of health, we recognize its central role in building inclusion and justice for people with an intellectual disability. 

Families and Support 

Family support can’t be taken for granted. However, there is nothing extraordinary about being supported and cared for by a family member or a person who loves you like family. This is as true for a person with an intellectual disability as it is for anyone else. 

Families are a main source of support to people with an intellectual disability. This is because families tend to take on added roles that are essential for equity and inclusion. For example, they act as advocates, pushing for accessible schools, workplaces, and communities. And, they help navigate complicated systems, understand medical information, and fight for funding and services. 

This shows something important: families are not just “caregivers.” Through their advocacy, creativity, and persistence, families often fill the gaps left by health and social systems. By looking at family support in this way, we can design better policies and stronger communities. Ones that recognize and strengthen the role families play in advancing equity. 

Reciprocity in Support 

Families need support too. One of the best ways we can support families is by setting people with disabilities up for success. When people are well supported, their family members can take on fewer added roles.

People with an intellectual disability are often seen as only receiving support, but the truth is that they also lend support to their families and communities through their natural relationships and bonds. This is especially the case if they themselves are well supported.  

Support is more than just “giving” — it is about how people shape, sustain, and enrich each other. 

Carlos Sosa, a past board member and person with lived experience, shared the supports he received as a person with hearing loss and a learning disability: 

“My own experiences with receiving support taught me empathy. It gave me the insight to understand others’ situations and to provide a level of support that goes beyond what I received.” 

His story also points to a larger truth: lived experience matters. As he explains, “it takes people of lived experience to shift the narrative … people with lived experience have what it takes to give support”. 

When the insights of people with intellectual disabilities are recognized, support becomes more authentic and responsive. It reflects lived experience, adapts to people’s real needs, and values relationships over assumptions.  Challenging ideas about who is “qualified” to give support. 

On International Day of Care and support let's recognize that support is more than a service. It is health. It is family. It is community. And it is the foundation of equity and inclusion. Today is a call to action for health systems to value the contributions of people with an intellectual disability. So that we may move closer to building communities rooted in equity and inclusion.