The family
A family is a group of people related by marriage, blood, and adoption. As a result, they have strong bonds with each other. The family has a vital role to provide a sense of belonging to its members (Bianchi, Casper & King, 2005). A family’s major role is to provide love and be loved back by other families. The love is expressed through the provision of basic needs and care to elderly, disabled, and disadvantaged family members so that they can have a future (Bianchi, Casper & King, 2005).
Parents act as a tool of discipline to their youth. The elderly in a family are role models for the young generation. They provide assistance to members so as to achieve their goals in life. Families support each other in times of need. They socialize their members to form associations in communal sporting activities aimed at not only socializing and interaction but also promoting talents in the younger generation (Bianchi, Casper & King, 2005).
A conceptual framework for family assessment
Theoretical frameworks are concepts with meaningful explanations that make one understand human behavior. An example of this context is a structural-functional framework(Bianchi, Casper & King, 2005). It portrays a family as a social system that positively interacts with one another in an external social environment like in church, school, and health systems (Gauwitz, 2007).
The framework analyzes the interacting purposes of community with the family. Family structures are examined and looked at critically on how they affect their functioning. In the framework, an eco-map is developed that draws connections between the family and its environment (Gauwitz, 2007). It is a tool that depicts the interaction of the family with the environment so as to assess the welfare of children by workers in studying family needs. The nurses doing this activity involve family members in developing the map. The family is at the center, with small circles around it representing the objects in its surrounding (Bianchi, Casper & King, 2005).
Community-based services
Community-based programs aim at improving the quality, efficiency, and availability of health services for the people in a community (Gauwitz, 2007). These services help in preventing diseases, thus improving the quality of life. Community-based programs provide the required assistance with medical care and relevant educational skills that assist them to reduce the chances of contracting diseases (Gauwitz, 2007).
Community-based programs include those that give a general education on topics such as chronic conditions, behavioral health, oral health, unintended pregnancy, drug use &drug abuse, and physical activity (Gauwitz, 2007).
Nursing skills and strategies for active family interventions
Nurses play a significant role in the maintenance of good health standards in a community. Nurses, therefore, must practice only those physical intervention skills that are biomechanically suitable for people they give services to (Lundy & Janes, 2003). They must be legally and ethically acceptable. Nurses ought to involve the patient and the family members of the patient in decision making and keep all the information about the treatment of the patient confidential. Nurses ought to bear in mind the cultural diversities of different people when administering medication indiscriminately (Gauwitz, 2007).
They must avoid using restrictive practices that can offend the patients. Only clinically qualified nurses should provide services to patients. They should observe good positive communication skills that are patient-centered; handle them with dignified care so as to understand their behavior (Lundy & Janes, 2003). For the act to reality, the nurse must be a good listener in the patient-nurse communication process (Lundy & Janes, 2003).
Nurses are required to provide guidance and counseling to patients before and after treatment. They should make the patient aware of the impacts associated with a particular mode of medication (Gauwitz, 2007). They are expected to promote health practices through the provision of primary health care approach in a community as a way of preventing diseases prevalence (Gauwitz, 2007).
References
Bianchi, S., Casper, L., & King, R. (2005). Work, family, health, and well-being. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Gauwitz, D. (2007). Community health nursing. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning.
Lundy, K., & Janes, S. (2003). Essentials of community-based nursing. Boston: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.