Communication Within Family-Centred Care: Communicating Effectively with Families

Families have a significant impact on who patients are and how they view the world. Our families raise us; they are witness to our greatest achievements and our most challenging disappointments. It is for this reason that the integration of family-centered care (FCC) is an essential component to providing quality nursing care (Brown, Mace, Dietrich, Knazik & Schamban, 2008). 

Creating opportunities for nurses to develop a broader understanding of families and to see their strengths even in the most trying of times is essential to practicing FCC and the foundation of this broad understanding must be laid early in the nurse's training process (Ahmann & Johnson, 2000). Nurses need to be trained to understand that families are a resource and must be taught to build on their strengths and to see families as a resource for quality and safety.