Theme 6 Videos. Understanding Cultural Perspectives about Mental Health in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
People with intellectual and developmental disabilities who have mental health needs are often overlooked, inappropriately diagnosed, and underserved. This theme explores lived experiences, strengths, challenges, and cultural perspectives related to mental health and intellectual and developmental disabilities.
It also highlights how culturally and linguistically competent, strengths-based, and evidence-informed practices can support more equitable mental health services across the lifespan. Mental health and intellectual and developmental disabilities are often addressed through separate systems, which can make it harder for people and families to receive care, treatment, supports, and services that are accessible, coordinated, and responsive to the whole person.
Why This Topic Matters
Culture can influence how people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families understand mental health, whether they seek support, how they describe distress, and what kinds of care they feel are acceptable or helpful. Stigma can also be compounded when a person experiences both intellectual and developmental disabilities and mental health needs.
Effective mental health supports must consider language, communication, trauma, disability, family context, and lived experience. This is especially important for people who communicate in languages other than English, use sign language, do not use speech as their primary form of communication, or need AAC or other communication supports.
Read the Topic Guide
Read the Guide: Understanding Cultural Perspectives about Mental Health in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
This web-based guide includes key definitions, cultural considerations, reflection questions, and references related to mental health and intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Watch the Videos
Note on videos: Audio and captions are available in multiple languages. Use the gear icon in the video player to choose your language.
Topic Video
Understanding Cultural Perspectives about Mental Health in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Featuring: Vernique, Joan, Ravi and Sheryl
People with intellectual and developmental disabilities who also have mental health needs are too often treated through fragmented systems or seen through only one part of their identity. This video explores how stigma, exclusion, limited understanding, and service gaps can prevent people from being seen as whole persons. It emphasizes cultural and linguistic competence, open-ended listening, strength-based approaches, and support that recognizes each person's identity, relationships, hopes, and full humanity.
Personal Story Videos
Supporting Jonathan
Featuring: Ann and Jonathan
Ann shares her family's journey supporting Jonathan, including the impact of developmental disability, anxiety, self-injury, and the need for more intensive supports. Their story shows how hard it can be for families to find the right care, especially in rural communities, and how faith, family connection, music, and OPWDD supports have helped Jonathan remain connected to the people and places that matter to him.
Ava's World
Featuring: Ava, Laurie, and Ira
Ava's story celebrates creativity, self-expression, and community support in a rural New York town. Through dance, art, horseback riding, songwriting, poetry, and fashion design, Ava shows the many ways people with intellectual and developmental disabilities express who they are. Her story also highlights the challenges families may face when specialized mental health and disability supports are limited close to home.
About the Speakers and Storytellers
Joan Beasley
Joan B. Beasley, PhD, is a Research Professor and Director of the National Research Consortium for Mental Health in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities at the University of New Hampshire. For more than 40 years, her work has focused on improving access to effective mental health services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In 1988, she developed and directed Systemic, Therapeutic, Assessment, Resources, and Treatment (START), a cross-systems crisis prevention and intervention program now used across the United States. Dr. Beasley has led national studies focused on inclusive research, effective services, and mental health and well-being for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She is also adjunct research faculty at Georgetown University, a visiting scholar at Brandeis University, and a family member who values positive, proactive, and inclusive practices.
Ravi Dahiya
Ravi Dahiya leads a portfolio of home- and community-based services at YAI.
His career in supports for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities began when he became a Direct Support Professional while in college. He now has more than 25 years of senior leadership experience across supports for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, program operations, quality improvement, strategic initiatives, growth, and data innovation. Ravi also pursues opportunities for YAI to share its expertise with providers and governments in other states and internationally. He serves on the Foundation Board of the American Network of Community Options and Resources (ANCOR), which awarded him the Suellen Galbraith Award for Excellence in Public Policy.
He also presents on integrating technologies and supports to expand community participation for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Vernique “Vee” Maybin
Vernique “Vee” Maybin is from Asheville, North Carolina, and lives in Marion. Born with cerebral palsy and epilepsy, Vee became a self-advocate to support others with similar experiences and to address disparities in care and in the voices of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Vee is passionate about disability rights, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, and the rights of people of color. Vee has served as a co-facilitator for truth and reconciliation forums and enjoys learning and coding.
Ava McIntosh
Ava McIntosh is a 21-year-old non-binary multidisciplinary artist and advocate living in New York’s Catskill Mountains. Ava is a dancer, actor, writer, fashion designer, skier, and public speaker whose creativity challenges narrow assumptions about disability and identity. Ava has performed in community theater, NBC’s Annie Live!, and inclusive dance programs, including the National Dance Institute’s DREAM Project and Born Dancing. In 2025, Ava made their choreographic debut at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater with See the Beauty in All, a piece inspired by isolation, community, and seeing beauty in every person. Ava created Don’t DIS My Ability, a presentation that advocates for people with disabilities, and is the subject of the forthcoming documentary Ava’s Story in the Emmy Award–winning My Body to Love series.
Ann L. Scherff
Ann L. Scherff is the parent of five adult children, including three sons with developmental disabilities. Her early experiences with family, friends with developmental disabilities, and a grandfather who was hard of hearing shaped her belief that people with disabilities can and should be part of inclusive communities. Ann earned degrees in education, paralegal studies, and deaf studies/interpreting. She has volunteered across systems to better understand services, advocate for her sons, and contribute to systems change.
Jonathan Scherff
Jonathan Scherff was born with a cleft palate and received early intervention services as an infant. With his mother’s advocacy, he attended preschool and school in inclusive settings, where he developed his musical talents, including playing in the band and on his church praise team. Jonathan uses self-directed and residential supports and has made progress in managing anxiety, with staff helping him establish routines. He remains connected to important people and places, including his doctor, family, and church.
Sheryl White-Scott
Sheryl White-Scott, MD, FACP, FAAIDD, is Senior Medical Advisor for AHRC New York City and Medical Specialist for Metro Developmental Disabilities Services in New York. She is board-certified in internal medicine, has fellowship training in developmental disabilities, and is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at New York Medical College. Dr. White-Scott specializes in clinical services for adults with developmental disabilities, with a strong interest in health care for women with developmental disabilities and people with developmental disabilities from minority populations. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Her national leadership includes appointments to the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities during the Clinton and Obama administrations and receipt of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities’ Dybwad Humanitarian Award.