Family-Centric Services: From daycare assistance to dental and hygiene support, we focus on the holistic well-being of both fathers and their children.
What is Family-Centered Care?
Family-centered care is a way of providing services that assures the health and well-being of children and their families through respectful family/professional partnerships. It honors the strengths, cultures, traditions, and expertise that families and professionals bring to this relationship. Family-centered care improves the patient’s and family’s experience with health care, reduces stress, improves communication, reduces conflict (including lawsuits), and improves the health of children with chronic health conditions (1; 2). Patient- and family-centered care is endorsed by the Institutes of Medicine (3) and the US Department of Health and Human Services (4), and is designated as a core component of a medical home by the American Academy of Pediatrics (5).
Health care visits for children youth and their families can be more than getting shots, having ears examined or getting treatment for the physical symptoms of an illness. During visits and in all forms of communication, strong family/professional partnerships ensure that a child/youth receives the highest quality of health care.
How is “family” defined?
Families define themselves. The following definition was developed in New Fathers Go Further, and has been widely used to define a family:
Families are big, small, extended, nuclear, multi-generational, with one parent, two parents, and grandparents. We live under one roof or many. A family can be as temporary as a few weeks, as permanent as forever. We become part of a family by birth, adoption, marriage, or from a desire for mutual support. As family members, we nurture, protect, and influence each other. Families are dynamic and are cultures unto themselves, with different values and unique ways of realizing dreams. Together, our families become the source of our rich cultural heritage and spiritual diversity. Each family has strengths and qualities that flow from individual members and from the family as a unit. Our families create neighborhoods, communities, states, and nations. (7)
Principles of Family-Centered Care for children
The concepts of “family-centered care” were first articulated by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Division of Services for Children with Special Health Needs. A definition and set of principles of family-centered care were created in 1995 by a team of family leaders and professionals under the guidance of MCHB. The principles of family-centered care are now widely discussed in relation to both child and adult health care (where the ideas are referred to as “patient-centered care”). These concepts are important in measuring whether health care is high quality.
- Acknowledges the family as the constant in a child’s life.
- Builds on family strengths.
- Supports the child in learning about and participating in his/her care and decision-making.
- Honors cultural diversity and family traditions.
- Recognizes the importance of community-based services.
- Promotes an individual and developmental approach.
- Encourages family-to-family and peer support.
- Supports youth as they transition to adulthood.
- Develops policies, practices, and systems that are family-friendly and family-centered in all settings.
- Celebrates successes.