To Feel Belonged: The Voices of Children and Youth with Disabilities on the Meaning of Wellbeing K.-R. Foley & A. M. Blackmore & S. Girdler & M. O’Donnell & R. Glauert & G. Llewellyn & H. Leonard Accepted: 26 December 2011 /Published online: 26 February 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 Abstract The aim of this paper was to describe the meaning of wellbeing for children and youth with disabilities from their perspective. Twenty children and young people with a range of disabilities including, cerebral palsy, autism, Aspergers syndrome, Down syndrome, mild to moderate intellectual disability and vision impairment, participated in five focus groups and one interview. Groups were facil- itated by at least two experienced professionals, including one scribe who recorded the discussions within the groups and took field notes on contextual information. Open coding was used to initially name and categorise data. Constant comparison methods were then used to compare codes and categories to advance the conceptual understanding. Six themes of the meaning of wellbeing emerged from the data describing participation, the importance of good friends, family factors, anxiety relating to performance at school, coping strategies/resilience, and personal growth and development. The concept of wellbeing from the child’ s perspective was described as feeling supported, included and respected, as well as feeling valued and capable. Ideas raised by children and young people have highlighted gaps within current indicator sets of children’ s wellbeing. These include reciprocal respect within relationships, coping Child Ind Res (2012) 5:375–391 DOI 10.1007/s12187-011-9134-2 K.-R. Foley (*) : S. Girdler School of Exercise, Biomedical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia e-mail: kittyf@our.ecu.edu.au A. M. Blackmore The Centre for Cerebral Palsy, Perth, Australia M. O’Donnell : R. Glauert : H. Leonard Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Centre for Child Health Research, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia G. Llewellyn University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia K.-R. Foley : S. Girdler Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Centre for Child Health Research, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia