## For Culturally Responsive

**10**

### TIPS Planning Meetings with Families

**Use these strategies to partner effectively with diverse families before and during IEP and IFSP planning meetings.**

- **Brief the family about the meeting, its purpose, and who will be present well in advance of the meeting.**
- **Reduce the number of professionals participating unless the family has requested that others be present.**
- **Encourage families to bring people who are important to them—relatives, spiritual leaders, friends, and so forth.**
- **Be sure that a skilled interpreter is present if families are ELLs or non–English speaking.**
- **Incorporate practices that are culturally comfortable for the family, such as serving tea, taking time to get acquainted before beginning the meeting, or conducting the meeting in a highly formal manner.**
- **Encourage family input without creating embarrassment. If family members don’t feel comfortable interacting in a public forum, be sure that the service provider who knows the family best has spoken with them ahead of time and can represent their perspective at the meeting.**
- **Ensure that the goals, objectives, or outcomes that are being developed are matched to the family’s concerns and priorities.**
- **Use appropriate resources that are designed for or are a part of the family’s cultural community; for example, referral to a health care provider who shares the same language and culture.**
- **Enlist cultural mediators or guides to help match families with resources. Coming from the same country does not ensure that individuals share the same beliefs, values, behaviors, or language.**
- **Allow time for questions, and discuss the kinds of questions other families often ask. This allows questions to be answered for family members who may feel uncomfortable about public questioning.**

*Adapted from Developing Cross-Cultural Competence, edited by Eleanor W. Lynch & Marci J. Hanson*