Diffusion of the Shared Citizenship Paradigm: Strategies and Next Steps

The field of disabilities is being challenged to adopt a paradigm that can be used to guide the transformation of services, supports, and research practices to ensure and enhance the personal autonomy, rights, and community inclusion of people with disabilities. This article describes strategies associated with the systematic diffusion and sustainability of an innovation such as the emerging Shared Citizenship Paradigm (SCP), which has the potential to guide the transformation. The systematic diffusion process incorporates five components: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. The systematic process also addresses the risks of dissonance, backlash, unintended consequences, and backsliding that can emerge when the sustainability of a paradigm is not supported. Throughout the article, we stress that meaningful change in organizations and systems requires use of a paradigm such as the SCP and its principles and foundation pillars to guide the change, and a systematic process such as that described in this article to bring about and sustain the change.