Citation: Kinnunen, A.; Vesterinen, A.; Kippola-Pääkkönen, A.; Karhula, M. Partnership Working among Families, Therapists and Educationalists to Enhance Collaboration Enabling Participation of Children with Intellectual Disabilities. Disabilities 2023, 3, 396–409. https://doi.org/10.3390/ disabilities3030026 Academic Editor: Reinie Cordier Received: 14 June 2023 Revised: 27 July 2023 Accepted: 1 August 2023 Published: 4 August 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). Article Partnership Working among Families, Therapists and Educationalists to Enhance Collaboration Enabling Participation of Children with Intellectual Disabilities Anu Kinnunen 1,2, *, Annastiina Vesterinen 3 , Anu Kippola-Pääkkönen 1,2 and Maarit Karhula 3,4 1 Department of Future Health Services, Lapland University of Applied Sciences, 94600 Kemi, Finland; anu.kippola-paakkonen@lapinamk.fi 2 Department of Participation and Functional Capacity, Lapland University of Applied Sciences, 94600 Kemi, Finland 3 Department of Sustainable Wellbeing, South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, 50100 Mikkeli, Finland; annastiina.vesterinen@xamk.fi (A.V.); maarit.karhula@kela.fi (M.K.) 4 Research Department, Social Insurance Institution of Finland, 00250 Helsinki, Finland * Correspondence: anu.kinnunen@lapinamk.fi; Tel.: +358-4000-487-789 Abstract: Backround: The collaboration of families, therapists and educationalists has been found to be an important factor in the successful rehabilitation of children with intellectual disabilities. Previous studies have focused on the effects of therapies and the perspectives of parents on collaboration in rehabilitiation. This study aims to describe the facilitators of, and barriers to, collaboration with adults in enhancing the participation of children with intellectual disabilities in education environments. Methods: In a qualitative study, the data were collected in 2021–2022 through individual interviews with parents (n = 16), focus group interviews (n = 17) with education professionals and an online survey tool with open-ended questions from therapists (n = 309). The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: Two overaching themes were identified: the prerequisites of collaboration and the sharing of expertise in collaboration from the perspective of all the participants, which included the factors facilitating and hindering collaboration. Conclusions: In optimizing the benefits of collaboration, all these themes are essential to enhancing functioning and participation. There is a need for the development of participatory practises to improve and intensify collaboration. The development of collaboration and practises should be supported by the managers. Digital solutions should be further explored in order to improve the partnership of adults and children. Keywords: intellectual disabilities; collaboration; rehabilitation 1. Introduction Children’s participation and experience of participation have been found to be impor- tant for children’s and young people’s learning, well-being and quality of life [1,2]. The United Nations Convention underlines the right of each person with disabilities to be a full member of society. This is also often an intervention goal for children with disabilities [3]. The World Health Organization (WHO) further defines participation as involvement in a life situation [4]. However, the definition of participation remains unclear. Imms et al. (2017) described participation as consisting of two dimensions: attendance and engagement. Attendance refers to “being there”, while engagement refers to involvement in an activ- ity [2]. Legislation frameworks emphasize the importance of attendance—that is, being there; engagement in activities is not emphasized and is often overlooked [5]. The participation of children with intellectual disabilities in daily activities creates opportunities for learning and development. Previous studies have focused primarily on the participation of children with intellectual disabilities (ID) in daily activities. How- ever, there is still a need to discover barriers to and facilitators of their participation in Disabilities 2023, 3, 396–409. https://doi.org/10.3390/disabilities3030026 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/disabilities