Community

Advocating in Multicultural Communities By Pamela Wilson

Children with disabilities, chronic health conditions, or developmental delays are born into families of every culture and ethnic background. We are not serving our children's best interests when our local parent groups, advocacy organizations or district wide school meeting audiences do not reflect the diversity of our communities.

Ethnic outreach and inclusive practices go beyond sending information and meeting notices out to newspapers and organizations that serve individual multicultural groups.

Advocates can make regular efforts in including fathers, grandparents and siblings by making arrangements for male speakers, offering childcare and age appropriate entertainment, having targeted topics and presenters from multicultural organizations, and planning social get togethers where panels and organizations can offer services to their specific cultural communities.

We need many voices raised in advocacy for our sons and daughters who have special needs, as well as their nuclear and extended families. Reaching out to families who have not participated in the regularly scheduled activities of our advocacy groups has the potential of moving opportunities forward for all our children.

Providing a point of access to information and support for all ethnic and cultural communities is a natural extension of our general advocacy for families and brings in wonderful resources for those who are already active.

Many organizations and advocacy groups serve the diversity of their communities well by providing ethnic outreach, information in several languages, translators, multilingual staff and volunteers. They have already found that the benefits far surpass the effort to introduce and welcome those who have not been traditionally included in community organizations.

Families from multicultural backgrounds often have the same questions and concerns as everyone else in an established advocacy group, with some additional concerns that may be specific to the culture or family. A frequent question from bilingual parents is whether children with developmental disabilities like Down syndrome can learn two or more languages, how to teach them both,and how this might affect their general acquistion of language and ability to communicate. Looking into such questions is delightful and interesting.

Thank you for your interest in including families from multicultural backgrounds - the more inclusive we are in advocacy, the more inclusive our communities will be for all our sons and daughters.