1. incorporating into policy and practice the recognition that the family is the constant in a child's life, whereas the service systems and support personnel within those systems fluctuate;
2. facilitating family–professional collaboration at all levels of hospital, home, and community care: care of an individual child; program development, implementation, evaluation, and evolution; and policy formation;
3. exchanging complete and unbiased information between families and professionals in a supportive manner at all times;
4. incorporating into policy and practice the recognition and honoring of cultural diversity, strengths, and individuality within and across all families, including ethnic, racial, spiritual, social, economic, educational, and geographic diversity;
5. recognizing and respecting different methods of coping and implementing comprehensive policies and programs that provide developmental, educa-tional, emotional, environmental, and financial sup-ports to meet the diverse needs of families;
6. encouraging and facilitating family-to-family support and networking;
7. ensuring that hospital, home, and community service and support systems for children needing specialized health and developmental care and their families are flexible, accessible, and comprehensive in responding to diverse family-identified needs; and
8. appreciating families as families and children as children, recognizing that they possess a wide range of strengths, concerns, emotions, and aspirations beyond their need for specialized health and develop-mental services and support (p. vii).