Application of the World Café to Disability Issues: A Systematic Review

Improving outcomes for individuals with disabilities requires collaborative and comprehensive efforts to address barriers at the community level. The World Café is often advocated as a community-engagement approach for bringing an assortment of community members (e.g., professionals, civic leaders, families, neighbors) into solutions-focused discussions about pressing local issues. This systematic review examined how the World Café has been applied specifically to disability issues. A literature search yielded 28 studies from six countries reporting on 139 World Café events involving more than 4,600 community members. The events focused on a variety of disability categories and spanned multiple topics (e.g., integrated employment, approaches to service delivery, school- and community-based supports, community inclusion, disability awareness). Findings provide important insight into the diverse applications of this model and how researchers and practitioners might use the World Café to inform local initiatives affecting individuals with disabilities and their families.