I’ve been thinking about belonging as a design principle. Not just a feeling, but a structural choice.

When families or providers interact with a system that feels cold, confusing, or inaccessible, the natural response is withdrawal. Not because they don’t care—but because the system signals, intentionally or not, “You don’t fit here.”

Belonging shows up in small ways:

• clarity of information
• multilingual access
• predictable processes
• respectful tone
• acknowledgment of lived realities

When these are missing, people disappear from the process.
When they are present, participation becomes possible.

Belonging isn’t soft. It’s infrastructure.