Explores a socially resilient system of care and two key elements of the wraparound process: cultural competence and discovering family strengths, preferences, voice, and choice. Demonstrates the basic elements of an organized, resilient system of care and community strengths and includes exercises in social resilience, cultural competence, and…

Described is the Ninos Especiales Program, a 3-year demonstration project in Hartford, Connecticut, which provided culturally sensitive early intervention services to 34 infants with severe disabilities and their families of Puerto Rican heritage. Included is information on program philosophy, services, evaluation, and participating families.…

Discusses a family-centered assessment and intervention approach that empowers and enables families in the selection and use of assistive technology by young children with disabilities. It considers key characteristics of parent/professional partnerships; child, family, technology, and service-system domains; and the use of culturally sensitive…

This article discusses ways service providers can enhance their working relationships with families of children with special needs. It offers practical guidelines to service providers when selecting materials they plan to use and share with children and their families, such as curriculum packages, information packets, brochures, CD-ROMS,…

This factsheet discusses the goals and principles that govern the development of culturally competent mental health programs for children and adolescents and their families. Principles include: (1) the family is the consumer and usually the focus of treatment and services; (2) Americans with diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds may have a unique set…

This theme issue focuses on family-centered practices and policies for service delivery. The first article, "Family-Centered Service Delivery," reports on a study of 130 published sources in education, social work, nursing, psychology, occupational therapy, and related disciplines, which found that the key components of family-centered…

This monograph provides a framework for programs, states, and organizations to think about the issues in developing culturally competent programs for families of children with special needs, and offers a variety of examples from programs across the country that are providing exemplary services. The monograph is designed to help program makers…

A series of self-study questions is presented to examine policy and practice issues important in developing culturally competent programs for children with special needs and their families. Cultural competence refers to a program's ability to honor and respect the beliefs, interpersonal styles, attitudes, and behaviors both of families who are…

This manual contains the Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Questionnaire (CCSAQ), a measure designed to assist service agencies working with children with disabilities and their families in self-evaluation of their cross-cultural competence. The measure is based on the Child and Adolescent Service System Program Cultural Competence Model. This…

This address begins with a study of self-help by a Mozambican in the 1590s and then imagines a period between the years 2050 to 2150, during which women caring for people with disabilities abolish the need for specialist educational, medical and social services, by multiplying and democratizing the necessary knowledge, skills and design to make…

This annotated bibliography focuses on materials published after 1991 about cultural competence and children with special health care needs. It is divided into the following sections: (1) epidemiology and demographics (11 publications); (2) cultural competence (15 publications); (3) cultural competence and children and youth with disabilities (29…

In this report, shifts underway in early intervention (EI) from a professional-centered to a more family-centered model of service delivery are documented. The demographic changes in the past decade of young children and families receiving EI services (e.g., teen parents, children with more complex developmental and medical needs), in addition to…

This theme issue of a bulletin on family support and children's mental health focuses on managed care and the impact on children who are in need of mental health services. Articles include: "Private Sector Managed Care and Children's Mental Health" (Ira S. Lourie and others); "Just What Is Managed Care?" (Chris Koyanagi);…

This monograph for health care professionals considers the impact that chronic illness and disability have on youth and their families and provides information on adapting principles of family-centered care to promote resilience in adolescents and their families. The monograph stresses the need for community systems of comprehensive services…

If early childhood systems are to be effective at the population level then they must be able to provide family-centered care to all the racial, ethnic and cultural groups that they serve. Despite major policy driven and technological advances in healthcare, health disparities across different races and ethnicities persist. For example, the infant…