Who We Are

At Open Doors for Multicultural Families, our team is at the heart of everything we do. We are a diverse staff who come from the same cultures and speak the same languages as the families we serve. This connection allows us to build trust and offer services that are culturally responsive and deeply relevant to the communities we support.

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Our Team

We bring more than just professional expertise—we also bring lived experience. Many of us have personal connections to intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), either as parents, family members, or individuals with disabilities ourselves. This lived experience gives us a unique perspective on the challenges families face, allowing us to offer not just services, but empathy and understanding.

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Our Impact

We provide bilingual support in over 24 languages, ensuring that language is never a barrier to accessing critical resources. When we are not fluent in a particular language, we offer phone interpretation services to ensure that every family can receive the support they need in their preferred language.

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Our Mission and Vision

Our mission is to engage and partner with individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) and their families, regardless of cultural or linguistic background.

Our vision is a world where all culturally and linguistically diverse individuals with IDD and their families thrive in an inclusive society of their own design.

A person wearing a camouflage hoodie and yellow beanie sits at a table, drawing on a large sheet of paper with a marker. An iPad, water bottle, chips, and paper plates are on the table. The name tag says “Cesar.”.

Through our cultural brokerage model, we connect families with vital services, offer specialized programming, and advocate for systemic change to ensure equitable access to resources.

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Four people sit at a picnic table outdoors playing an educational board game. Soft drinks, food, and game pieces are on the table. A grassy park and parked cars are visible in the background.

We focus on serving a diverse range of communities, including immigrants, refugees, people of color, and others who may face barriers in accessing support.

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Our Story

Open Doors for Multicultural Families was founded in June 2009 by a passionate group of parents, professionals, and community leaders who had been working together for over a decade to connect multicultural families to the disability services their children needed. Led by Ginger Kwan, they recognized the deep gap in services for families with children who have intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and set out to create an organization that would bridge that divide.

Three young people stand close together outdoors, smiling at the camera. Two are wearing hijabs and the other is in a red Champion hoodie. A green canopy and trees are visible in the background.

From the beginning, Open Doors embraced a cultural brokerage model to help families navigate complex systems while honoring their unique cultural needs. This approach has allowed us to provide tailored support and ensure access to critical resources.

Over the years, we’ve seen the need for our work grow, especially as communities face systemic barriers rooted in both ableism and racism. We have expanded across Western Washington to meet this increasing demand for culturally relevant, equitable services.

Today, we remain true to the original vision set forth in our first board meeting, continuing to advocate for inclusion and equality for individuals with IDD from all backgrounds.