Engaging Families in Care and Practice Transformation

Engaging Families in Care and Practice Transformation

Family-centered care occurs at two levels 1) during patient and family encounters and 2) in office systems and community partnerships which is improved by partnering with family advisors to create change. This page is dedicated to the first. View the family advisor page to learn more about the second level.

Watch these webinars and learn strategies to improve discussion, health promotion, and risk counseling with families by practicing strength-based, family-centered approaches including trauma and resilience informed care and health equity.

• How and Why? Trauma and Resilience Informed Care
• Nadine Burke Harris Ted Talk "How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime"
• Family-Centered Approaches Webinar Slides
• Common Factors Handout
• Common Elements Handout
• Eliciting Family Strengths Scripts

To create more equitable approaches to care, learn more about the levels of racism and bias in communication.

• Why Race Matters from Tiffani Johnson, MD, MSc, FAAP and slides
• Bias in Communication from Tiffani Johnson, MD, MSc, FAAP
  Family-centered discussions, counseling, and workflow resources:
• CSSP Strengthening Families
• CSSP Strengthening Families Action Sheets
• AAP EBCD 1,000 Days
• Bright Futures Eliciting Parent Strengths Tip Sheet
• HELP and Common Factors
• NCTSN – Secondary Trauma, Self Care (Self Care for Educators)

Equitable practice changes and care improvement resources:

• Watch and learn from this Ted Talk on Allegories on Race with Camara Jones, MD, MPH, PhD
• Take and reflect on your results from Harvard University Implicit Association Test
• Discuss what practices changes can be made to implement recommendations from The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health. Engage families to understand their perspectives and areas they see for improvement in your office environment and practice policies.
• Continue to learn about racism and equity approaches with these resources and discussion guides AAFP EveryONE Toolkit and George Washington Community Resilience Toolkit (Pair of ACEs)

Learn from these mental health integration toolkits and implement practice changes:

• Pediatric Integrated Care Collaborative (PICC) Toolkit
• AAP Mental Health Primary Care Tools
• Child Trends Trauma and Resilience Informed Care

Engaging Family Advisors

Family engagement is an integral approach to the planning, delivery, and evaluation of health care that is grounded in mutually beneficial partnerships among health care providers, patients, and families.

Pediatricians often talk with their patients about social drivers of health, infant and child mental health, and other complex and chronic health care needs. These conversations can be sensitive and raise questions around confidentiality, community referral services, health equity, and more. Family advisors can help practices address the best way these questions can be posed to families and develop solutions together. Additionally, their experiences and expertise make them the perfect partners to bridge the gap between community and clinical services.

Browse the resources on this page for information on how to engage family advisors in your practice.

Best Practices for Identifying, Engaging and Sustaining Family Advisors
This guide, developed from participants of the Addressing Social Health and Early Childhood Wellness (ASHEW) grant , includes a wide variety of information to help practices engage family advisors in their work.

The guide includes the following information:

• What are family advisors
• Benefits of engaging family advisors
• How to overcome common obstacles
• Success stories
• Sample job descriptions for family advisors
• Sample promotional material for recruiting family advisors
• Sample mission statement
• Examples of tasks for family advisors
• A step-by-step guide to identify, engage, and sustain family advisors

Watch this short video on engaging family advisors in your pediatric practice and then, using the links below, review the 3 steps in the family advisor guide along with the additional resources.

• Step 1: Develop Infrastructure for Supporting Family Advisors
• Step 2: Select Family Advisors
• Step 3: Ensure Success with Your Family Advisors

Family Advisor Success Stories
Three success stories of engaging family advisors that were gathered during the ASHEW grant. The areas of success include: (1) creating a family advisor panel, (2) bridging the gap between the practice and community partners, and (3) improving the screening process.

Common Obstacles of Family Advisor Engagement and Strategies to Overcome Them
Participants of the ASHEW grant shared a variety of obstacles while engaging family advisors and strategies to overcome them to ensure success.

Family Advisor Job Description Quality Improvement
Template of a family advisor job description with a focus on quality improvement. The information is this job description is meant to be edited and tailored to the needs and expertise of your family advisor(s) and your practice.

Family Advisor Job Description Community Partnership
Template of a family advisor job description with a focus on creating community partnerships. The information is this job description is meant to be edited and tailored to the needs and expertise of your family advisor(s) and your practice.

Examples of Tasks for Family Advisors
Unsure of what tasks family advisors can do to help your practice? Review this document that lists examples of family advisor tasks ranging from beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

Connect with the AAP FamilYPartner Network
The AAP FamilY Partnerships Network (FPN) promotes patient- and family-centered care in pediatric healthcare by representing family and youth perspectives and supporting ongoing youth and family involvement at the local, state and national level within the AAP and with other stakeholders.

Family Advisors

Identify and engage a family advisor(s) and include their perspective in your practice improvements. It is recommended that you compensate family advisors for their time. Learn more about recommendations on how to recruit family advisors and customize job descriptions on the STAR Center Engaging Family Advisors.

Watch and learn from these webinars:

• Family Perspective Webinar from AAP California-1 Chapter
• Family Perspective Slides
• Fostering Welcoming Environment
• AAP Introduction to FESAT Tool for Discussion with Family Advisors

Other resources:

• Family Advisor Guide
• Family Advisor Sample Tasks and Job Descriptions
• Family Advisor video
• AMA and Johns Hopkins Family Advisor Recruitment Toolkit
• Family Engagement in Systems Assessment Tool (FESAT) Note: must complete a pop up with your email to access so they can report to their funder who is using the tool. To be used as a discussion and planning guide.
• National Center Medical Home Implementation. Video: Changing Relationships How to Foster Effective Communication with Patients and Families

   

Foster Male Caregiver Engagement

Father involvement in the early childhood years is associated with positive child development. For example, at 3 years of age father-child communication has been shown to be a predictor of advanced language development. Fathers tend to be more likely and more active play partners. Fathers engage in more active play, and their involvement in play with preschoolers predicts decreased externalizing and internalizing behavior problems and enhanced social competence.

Pediatricians are often the first members of the health care team to engage fathers.

Pediatricians can be more inclusive to fathers by:

1. Welcoming fathers and expressing appreciation for their attendance.
2. Offering flexible hours for all caregivers to attend well child visits
3. Addressing fathers’ unique concerns regarding their children.
4. Recognizing that mothers and fathers may not always agree on how best to raise a child. Parents may disagree on the approach to discipline or positive parenting.
5. Emphasizing how children look to their fathers as role models for behavior and are likely to imitate behaviors.
6. Stressing the unique role many fathers play in encouraging age-appropriate active play and modeling physical activity
7. Promoting fathers awareness about the practicalities of breastfeeding and how to support mothers’ nursing.

You are a great playmate for your child! They love laughing with you and learning how to play from you. You can help your child build skills to get them ready for kindergarten. Games like freeze dance, Simon says, and red-light green light all build control of their bodies and asks them to pay attention-important skills for school. Your child learns so much from you. What are some things you like to teach her?

Resources

• AAP Policy Statement, Fathers’ Roles in the Care and Development of Their Children: The Role of Pediatricians