Leadership Team Request: Social Diversity at MS

[MikeNY]

The leadership team would like to ask how we may improve the services offered by MS in order to better serve people of various ethnic and social diversity. Anyone who is willing to identify themselves here on the public forum, please do so and include any suggestions which you may have. Anyone who would prefer not to divulge that information, but would like to add suggestions, please contact myself, other members of the Leadership Team, or a representative of MS, by PM or email with any suggestions which you may have. We would like to move these discussions forward in order to reach more people in need and better serve the people who are already here.
Thank you

 

[Lloydy]

Mike
what sort of info would be useful?

How about
sex, age, race, sexuality preference, married, children, religion, occupation.

and would information on
in therapy, how long for, in a group, how long for,
when abused, age when disclosed, age started recovery

Is this the sort of thing you need?

I think we could also do it with the Poll facility which would ensure anonimity.
Dave

 

[MikeNY]

Any and all information is helpfull. Right now, I believe that we are most interested in ideas for expanding on how MS may be of more help in addressing the specific needs of various cultural groups. We already know that we need to expand by making information easier to understand by translating and making things available in other languages. We would also like to know specific issues which various groups have encountered as far as their recovery and how we may be able to expand to be able to help others have fewer barriers in their recovery in the future.

 

[SAR]

Well I am a white natural-born US citizen and I suppose that puts me in a cultural group with a good many of the other people here, but I will identify myself as such anyway, since you asked.

I think it is great that the LT is trying to reach out to as many folks as possible.

I think the biggest barrier to recovery, on a site like this, is assuming things about the other posters. We all know about this in a sort of emotional and thematic sense-- can't read facial expressions on the internet, can't really know where others are coming from, etc-- but I think it is true in a social/ethnic sense too.

Probably many of us who see ourselves as socially "normal" (or in a majority) in some way will, by default, assume that other folks here are like us in that way, and many of us who see ourselves as "abnormal" (or in a minority) in some way will assume that others here are unlike us in that way. I am guilty of that on this forum-- when someone comes here as a partner, I assume that it is a female in a heterosexual relationship, unless something in the post indicates otherwise. Also, I usually assume that the folks here are as well or better educated than I am. If I were the only person in my family, workplace, or neighborhood with a college degree, I would probably assume the opposite.

I am going on kind of long about this because I think that we are all alienated enough before we get here and I think that the real best goal of any kind of cultural expansion would be trying to educate all of us about not making assumptions that might cause anyone to feel more abnormal or alienated. Or to remind us all that every point of view is alien to someone else.