Dear Stephanie: What a challenge! Some quick thoughts for anyone working with mothers who are from a different cultural background and who are breastfeeding and mothering in the context of very challenging life situations are: 1. listen a lot 2. take a look at pp. 61-83 of Breastfeeding and Human Lactation by Riordan and Auerbach (1999) 3. find a way to incorporate peer counselors into your work 4. contact women's shelter's for input on how to more effectively work with mothers in the kinds of challenging life situations you described 5. read up on the topics you're unfamiliar with (from cultural in general [e.g., my recent article], to the particular culture(s) of the women, to homelessness, to drug abuse, to sexual abuse...)--in your, no doubt, abundant spare time : ) 6. make friends within the community that you're working with (call up the director of a community center, take someone to lunch, ask for help, participate in community events)--they can provide support and ideas that will be invaluable in your work 7. be prepared to make many "cultural" mistakes--you're only human, you can't know everything, and there's so much to learn. You can only do what you can do. 8. put things out on the table so mothers know they can be talked about: for example, prejudice and how their experience of it may affect how they view you and your interaction 9. ask questions: what are their goals, what are their obstacles, what are ways around those obstacles 10. create a good support system for yourself--this will be very hard work Best wishes, Cynthia Good Mojab, MS Clinical Psychology (Breastfeeding mother, advocate, independent [cross-cultural] researcher and author; LLL Leader and Research Associate in the LLLI Publications Department; and former psychotherapist currently busy nurturing her own little one.) Ammawell Email: [log in to unmask] Web site: http://ammawell.homepage.com *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html