Family Assessment in Community Health Nursing

Summary

The video delves into the critical role of family assessment in Community Health Nursing, emphasizing the significance of understanding diverse family structures. Community health nurses engage with families beyond traditional settings, focusing on building trust and long-term relationships through home visits. This enables a holistic assessment, accommodating diverse family definitions and dynamics. Various assessment models and tools like genograms and eco maps assist nurses, but the partnership with families, fostering open communication, stands as a cornerstone of effective assessment. The video highlights the importance of identifying family strengths, not just problems, to aid in coping with crises.

Highlights

• Community health nursing emphasizes healthy families to build healthy communities. 🌍
• Family assessments consider various types of family structures. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦
• Home visits offer comprehensive insights into family dynamics. 🏠
• Assessment models like genograms and eco maps are valuable tools. 📚
• Partnerships and open dialogue with families enhance assessments. 🔄

Key Takeaways

• Family is self-identified, going beyond bloodlines! 💖
• Home environments provide comfort for better assessments. 🏡
• Nurses build long-term relationships for deeper insights. 🔗
• Assessment is a partnership, not a one-sided process. 🤝
• Identifying strengths is as crucial as spotting problems. 💪

Overview

Community Health Nursing plays an integral role in connecting with families to foster healthier communities. This bond is cultivated through family assessments that focus on understanding diverse family structures. Whether it's nuclear, blended, or self-identified groups, recognizing who defines family is essential in this process. Nurses must delve into what families consider their needs and strengths, emphasizing the importance of getting to know each family member within their unique environment.

The process isn't just about identifying issues; it's about building a partnership. Nurses engage deeply with families, especially through home visits, enabling assessments that are comprehensive and holistic. This long-term interaction helps in creating a trusting relationship where families can express themselves freely, giving nurses a clearer picture to work with. In such settings, families are more comfortable, fostering open communication essential for effective assessment.

Utilizing different family assessment models and tools helps structure the process. Whether using genograms or eco maps, these tools provide insightful perspectives on the family's connections and backgrounds. Importantly, the approach should focus on collaboration, with nurses and families working together. This partnership allows families to not only identify their problems but also recognize their strengths, aiding them in managing stresses and crises effectively.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to Family and Community Health Nursing The chapter introduces the importance of working with families in Community Health Nursing. It emphasizes the idea that nurturing healthy families is essential for building healthy communities, which subsequently contributes to healthier populations. The focus of community health nurses on families is described as both justified and essential. The content is introduced as part of a video program.
• 01:00 - 02:30: Definition and Diversity of Family The chapter discusses the Definition and Diversity of Family, emphasizing family assessment in Community Health nursing practice. It highlights the complexity of defining 'family' due to the diversity in family forms, which include traditional nuclear families, blended families, and single-parent families.
• 02:30 - 04:30: Approach to Family Assessment The chapter discusses the concept of family and its various definitions, emphasizing that the most valid definition of a family may come from the individuals themselves. Families may include same-gender partners, extended family members, international students, or friends living with them. Therefore, when assessing a family, healthcare professionals, such as community health nurses, should consider the members identified by the family. One of the initial tasks for a community health nurse is to understand who the family considers as part of their unit.
• 04:30 - 06:30: Benefits of Home Visits The chapter discusses the importance of understanding the concept of 'family' when conducting home visits. It emphasizes that a family is defined by its members and not strictly by bloodlines or legal ties. This perspective highlights the significance of recognizing individuals' self-identified familial associations. The chapter sets the stage for exploring who is involved in such family dynamics, acknowledging that emotional and functional associations form the essence of what a family is, rather than mere biological connections.
• 06:30 - 09:00: Challenges in Family Assessment The chapter titled 'Challenges in Family Assessment' discusses the process of family assessment in the context of community health nursing. It emphasizes gaining a holistic understanding of a family's needs, concerns, strengths, and support networks. The chapter highlights the unique features of family assessment, focusing on obtaining a comprehensive view of the family's environment and dynamics to better understand their situation.
• 09:00 - 12:00: Family Assessment Models and Tools The chapter explores the role of community health nursing, primarily focusing on home visits, which allow for a comprehensive assessment of families in their natural environments. This setting often makes families feel more secure and willing to express their views, leading to more thorough assessments. Public health nursing provides continual care to new families, from just three days after a child's birth until they reach 18 months.
• 12:00 - 15:00: Partnership Approach in Assessment This chapter discusses the importance of forming long-term relationships in community health clinics, particularly through programs like Healthy Beginnings. It emphasizes how such relationships allow nurses to follow families from birth until the child is five years old. Community health nurses, therefore, can develop deeper connections with families, enabling parents to feel comfortable reaching out with concerns. This approach is portrayed as being distinctive to community health nursing, fostering an enduring partnership with families not commonly found in other nursing areas.

Family Assessment in Community Health Nursing Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 working with families is integral to Community Health nursing practice in keeping with the notion that building Healthy Families builds Healthy Communities which in turn builds healthy populations a community health nurses focus on families is both warranted and indeed crucial this video program
• 00:30 - 01:00 focuses on family assessment within the context of Community Health nursing practice in the video Frontline Community Health nurses will illustrate the process and issues inherent in assessing Families First of all though what is a family this is not an easy question to answer in today's world where family forms can be quite diverse families can range from the traditional nuclear family to Blended families single parent
• 01:00 - 01:30 families same gender families and so on perhaps the most valid definition of family may come from the fames themselves who do they see as comprising their family if they include extended family and international student who is residing with the family a friend who lives with them in their home as family then it is these people that the nurse should focus on so one of the first questions a community health nurse needs
• 01:30 - 02:00 to ask when assessing a family is who do you consider to be your family the definition of family by wall captures this perspective of family the family is a self-identified group of two or more individuals whose Association is characterized by special terms who may or may not be related by Bloodlines or law but who function in such a way that they consider themselves to be a family now that we have looked at who is being
• 02:00 - 02:30 assessed how can family assessment be described in essence it is gaining insight into the family's World their goals their needs their concerns their strengths their support networks and so on in other words gaining a holistic view of the family and its environment what are some defining features of family assessment within the context of Community Health nursing I think one of the most unique aspects of
• 02:30 - 03:00 Community Health nursing is the home visiting um by going to these families homes we are able to more thoroughly assess their physical environments as well families are often more secure and comfortable in their home environments so they're more likely um to be more open and express their views and opinions so I think it allows for a more thorough assessment in this role of Public Health nursing we get to see new families from like day three pretty much much right up until 18 months in child
• 03:00 - 03:30 health clinics so we get we get to build a nice relationship for that whole time and also if they're followed under another one of our programs the long-term Healthy Beginnings program we're able to follow them from birth till age five so you really get to know the families you get to build a a relationship parents feel that they can call you with questions and concerns I think that's unique to to Community Health nursing I don't think you get the same uh long-term relationship in in other areas as you can see Community Health nurses have some distinct
• 03:30 - 04:00 advantages in assessing families for example the nurse's ongoing contact with a family promotes trust and the development of a therapeutic relationship both of which are foundational for Effective assessment this ongoing contact also allows for assessment to continue over a period of time furthermore although the nurse can do family assessment in the clinic setting she often visits families in their own
• 04:00 - 04:30 homes not only are families likely to be more comfortable and therefore more open in their own environment but also more family members are likely to be present which then allows the nurse to focus not just on one or two family members but upon the whole family why is this important it's very important to look at the whole family and not just a one piece so you can get a a broad understanding of the whole the whole family if you just look at one part I feel that you will probably miss quite a
• 04:30 - 05:00 few things that would be important to know there are some situations of course which does make it difficult to do um an assessment on all family members for example if um a family the mother and father are separated or divorced also if the parent if one of the parents are working away which is a very common uh occurrence in this province right now so when you go to the home to do a visit you may just have a mom child and a sibling so you're not able to assess the family as a whole often times uh the
• 05:00 - 05:30 older siblings may be perhaps in school that you can uh you know assess the The Sibling uh connection uh and often times uh through a child Youth and Family Service the child may be apprehended from the home and is placed in foster care I worked with um a family from a foreign country and um the mom was here attending University and um trying to do her Masters and then she ended up having a baby um no other family around not a
• 05:30 - 06:00 single person that she could rely on and um the dad was also in the in another country working and couldn't even be there for the birth of the child or for um you know the first two months of the child's life so for me at that time the family unit was just the mom and the child and that's what I based my assessment on there are several family assessment models a nurse can use to guide her assessment for example the mill model the fredman family assessment
• 06:00 - 06:30 model and the Calgary assessment model no individual model can capture fully all of the dimensions of a family's experience and each model has its particular strengths and weaknesses when considering the context of assessing families in community health nursing practice however such assessment models can be invaluable in providing guidelines for areas to focus on in
• 06:30 - 07:00 assessment the nurse can also use such tools as genograms which create a pictoral view of the family's structure relationships medical and social history and boundaries Ecom Maps which give a pictural view of the family's connections with entities Beyond itself can also be helpful no matter what model or tool the nurse may use it is important to approach the assessment not as something to be done to to the family
• 07:00 - 07:30 but as something to be done with the family in other words seeing the family as an active partner in the process of assessment with the nurse facilitating the process in this sense the family is not only seen as the targeted client but more importantly as a partner with the nurse having a partnership stance is I think critical to effective assessment when considering the family as a partner
• 07:30 - 08:00 um with the community health nurse I think it is important uh to use open-ended communication techniques definitely allowing um the family to answer the questions um quite openly um as opposed to using closed ended questions or uh just checklist um sometimes I mean families are in crisis um they don't always um you know recognize their strengths so I think a good example of partnering is working with these
• 08:00 - 08:30 families to help them explore and identify the strengths they need uh to go on and help them deal with any stresses or crisis they have ongoing in their lives right now uh an example that I can provide is um you know when I was involved in a family uh both parents had mental health issues um had just had a newborn baby and um a 4-year-old as well um you know a big adjustment for this family and with the mom um not working
• 08:30 - 09:00 full-time and only getting about you know 55% of her salary um of course there was a lot of financial stress so a lot of issues affecting U both parents mental health at that time um so Mom to try to deal with the financial difficulties decided to return to work um a night shift being um you know a more suitable time for her however mom um doesn't have her license um so then
• 09:00 - 09:30 Transportation became an issue and Dad wasn't able to give her um a ride to work just because it's time that the children would be in bed so it was a major crisis for this family at that time and um as I said when they are in a form of Crisis sometimes they're not always able to recognize their strengths so as a public health nurse you're able to partner with these families to help them identify strengths such as uh family supports who do they have um that
• 09:30 - 10:00 they can rely on to provide some transportation to this mom um so she is able to return to work note in these comments that part of the partnership between the nurse and the family is focused on identifying strengths if the nurse focuses only on identifying problems and needs then the assessment will not be holistic and valuable resources for the family can be missed the nurse who approaches family assessment from assets viewpoint