The promising practice of cultural brokering support with culturally diverse families of children with developmental disabilities: Perspectives from families

Background and Purpose: The Parent to Parent model of support has been found to be effective with supporting families of children with DD in navigating complex systems, gaining emotional support, building positive resilience, sharing ideas and learning problem solving skills. Parent to Parent ties can be particularly strong when cultural capital is involved. This study presents a cultural brokering initiative embedded in the evidence-informed Parent to Parent support model that could be a promising practice to support culturally diverse families of children with DD. Methods: This study used a mixed methods approach to examine the practice and outcomes of a cultural brokering initiative in a statewide Parent to Parent support program in a University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities that serves culturally diverse families of children with DD. Both surveys and interviews were used to learn about these families\u27 experiences with cultural brokering services and their perspectives on the effectiveness of these services in meeting their families\u27 needs. Results: The findings of this study show that cultural brokers primarily serve in the roles of listeners, interpreters, educators, liaisons and mediators when supporting culturally diverse families of children with DD, and that parents overall had a high rating of the cultural brokering service and were very satisfied with the support they received. Implications: A cultural brokering initiative embedded in the Parent to Parent support model is a promising practice that could better support culturally diverse families of children with DD and improve the service outcomes to these families. However, service providers who want to start a cultural brokering initiative should work closely with families to decide the roles of a cultural broker, how they will offer support, and who should be a cultural broker to represent and support a particular community