The newsletter offers perspectives on the provision of family support services for families with disabled members. An introductory article by Madeleine Will, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, stresses the impressive coping skills exhibited by many such families and their relationship to service professionals. The newsletter's major article, by Dennis G. Olson, offers a conceptual framework to family support which includes five components: (1) crisis; (2) information/education; (3) skills development; (4) emotional support; and (5) task oriented activities. Examples of applying the process at the individual level, the community level, and the system or policy level are offered. Implications of the framework for family support and community systems are drawn. Also included in the newsletter is a statement by the Center on Human Policy offering principles to guide public policy toward families with developmentally disabled children. The newsletter also contains a brief description of in-home and out-of-home models of respite care, recommendations of a National Parents' Planning Meeting, and brief statements of opinion concerning such topics as parental dreams for their children, mobilization of community resources, parent groups, the parent/professional relationship, and parent involvement. (DB)