A MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Demographic trends are rapidly changing the character of our nation and affecting all areas of human services. We have become more culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse than at any other time in our history. Human service workers, administrators and policy makers need new knowledge and skills to develop better relationships with the families who seek out or are thrust into the present service system.

The term multiculturalism has gained wide recognition recently and is interpreted in a variety of ways (Banks & McGee Banks, 1989). Multiculturalism is often understood as simply the study of a variety of cultures and as an exposition of their different characteristics and traits. However, many authors believe that taking a multicultural perspective means going beyond this focus alone and looking at other social forces that shape all of our lives (Gollnick & Chinn, 1990; Goodenough, 1987). In this view, multiculturalism includes the study of the effects of race, culture, class, gender and disability, though the latter is just gaining recognition as an area that should also be viewed through multiculturalism lens.

A multicultural perspective provides a way of understanding ourselves, encouraging us to look at how our own values and perspectives affect our view of the world. It acknowledges the existence of a dominant culture, characterized by what we will call white, middle-class assumptions and behaviors, and encourages awareness of how different groups of people are affected by that culture's assumptions. Within human services, differences of race, culture, class and gender all affect how families are served, how human service professionals and other workers interact with individual family members, and how decisions are made about family matters.

The past decade has seen a dramatic shift in public policy regarding families of children with developmental disabilities. With that shift, family support services have emerged as an important component of the community service system. Other service components are now seen as having effects on family relationships that should be considered rather than ignored.

Today, the insights, concerns, and needs of families are increasingly acknowledged, and language such as "family-centered," "family-driven," and "family-determined" is promoted. In theory, these changes reflect a growing belief that family members have an important role to play in the services that affect the lives of all their members.

We can find a major example of the shift within developmental disability services by looking at how family support services have grown. This growth, which varies from state to state, is based on many factors:

Policy makers began to heed the requests for support of families whose members with disabilities lived at home;

Research on families began to emphasize family strengths rather than pathology and deficits, and defined families' needs for support;

Family members of people with disabilities became active advocates for increased support to the home, delivered in a family- centered, flexible, nonintrusive manner;

Policy makers came to believe that family support services would cost less than out-of-home placement;

Family support services were viewed as preserving American family values--family support came to be viewed as the right and moral thing to do;

Life within family came to be viewed as better for the child with a disability than placement in a congregate setting.

Until fairly recently, developmental disability services focused on the person with the disability, not the family. At present, however, states are providing a wide range of family support services, and are making these available through a variety of means, ranging from direct case subsidies to vouchers to agency-provided or arranged services (Taylor, Racino, Knoll & Lutfiyya, 1987; Knoll et al., 1990). Within this new focus on families, however, many problems persist.

For example, even though policies and language are now more likely to be constructed with an awareness of their effect on families, many implicit assumptions about the nature and makeup of families continue to influence policy and practice. These assumptions have major implications for families, but have generally not taken into account the difference in gender, culture, race , and class among families.

The Center on Human Policy has studied services for people with developmental disabilities and their families from a number of perspectives. Between 1985 and 1989, through the Research and Training Center on Community Integration, we looked at what family members said they wanted and at what practitioners were providing (Taylor, Bogdan, & Racino, 1991). During those years, and especially after 1989, when our Community Study began, we have spend many hours with families who receive services. Throughout these years, we have see that gender, race, culture, and class issues permeate policy and practice affecting families. This bulletin, which is based on data collected over these years, attempts to address some of the issue we have uncovered, and to make recommendations for policy makers.