Greetings and thanks for dropping by to read this blog. I appreciate the invitation by Dr. Janice M. Bell to write a guest blog about the Calgary Family Assessment Model.
But where do I begin? Once upon a time….! Well, how about if I start by telling you how old the model is. In 2009, CFAM officially became 25 years old when the 5th Edition of Nurses and Families: A Guide to Family Assessment and Intervention was published by FA Davis in Philadelphia, PA. This book, co-authored by my good friend and colleague Dr. Maureen Leahey and me, has been the home of CFAM all these years.
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I was in a meeting today and a colleague remarked that she wanted to know more about what was happening in family nursing in other countries (outside of the USA). I thought it might be useful to provide a brief snapshot of the published documents that highlight major family nursing developments within countries around the globe as well as nurses who have championed family nursing in these countries. This list is not meant to be exhaustive–simply the publications and people that I am aware of in order to provide a glimpse of the major developments in family nursing at an international level. Read More >>
The first International Family Nursing Conference was hosted in June 1988 by the University of Calgary, Faculty of Nursing under the leadership of Dr. Lorraine M. Wright. Twenty-one years later, the University of Iceland successfully hosted the 9th International Family Nursing Conference in Reykjavik in June 2009. Please go to the Iceland conference website to see the program and pictures from this wonderful conference. Read More >>
Dr. Lorraine Wright and I (along with our colleagues Wendy Watson Nelson and Nancy Moules) have offered the Family Externship Workshop since 1987.
I just had lunch with a nurse who completed the Externship workshop in 2001. She came to the workshop disillusioned with her nursing career and with well developed plans to leave nursing and become an interior designer. She told me that workshop helped clarify her beliefs about what she valued and gave her new skills and confidence to offer therapeutic conversations with the individuals and families experiencing cancer. She has never looked back and is now in a senior nursing leadership position, still advocating for compassionate, family focused care that acknowledges that all health care occurs within a RELATIONSHIP. The workshop focuses on increasing capacity of health care providers to enter into relationships with individuals and families and address illness suffering and family healing. Read More >>
