Conceptualizing Family Strengths in Contemporary Society

The assignment content discusses the concept of family in contemporary society and its relevance to healthcare practices. It highlights the importance of understanding the structure of family and their relationships, which have changed over time due to shifting demographics, poverty, and unequal distribution. The article also introduces the family strength framework, which defines positive traits necessary for promoting family strength. This framework is applied to healthcare practice to assess family strengths and determine risk factors that affect patient health.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Nursing assignment
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Concept of family in contemporary society
The definition of family and their relationship has changed with time. In contemporary
society, clearly understanding the structure of family is important to understand the cause of
issues in families and counsel person affected by different issues. Family can be defined as group
of people living together connected by marriage or blood relations. In the contemporary society,
family may not mean living together, however the element of blood connection still defines the
family. Family is also defined as a social group in which social group live characterized by
common residence and cooperation in all activities. In current society, many transformations
have been observed in forms of family (Barnes & Rowe 2013). For instance, in the past more of
joint family was seen characterized by unity and support for each other. However, now fragile
family is seen because of shifting demographics, poverty and unequal distribution in different
socio-demographic groups. The form of family is also changing with the changes in family needs
throughout the life course. The possible consequence of this change is the rise in contemporary
family issues and threat to well-being of family members (Lamanna, Riedman & Stewart 2014).
On the whole, it can be stated that contemporary family is quiet fluid and changeable
today. It is reflected by family types like single parent families, joint families, step families and
homosexual families. In the past, family was defined based on essentialist notion, however now
fluid ideology regarding family also exist due to shifting pattern of society (Park 2015).
Family strength framework and application to health care practice
The family strength framework defines the positive traits needed for promoting
the strength of a family. The main qualities that denoted family strength included commitment,
positive communication, affection, sense of spiritual well-being, spending time together and

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coping with stress and crisis. A family which possess all the above traits are very strong and
healthy relationship is seen between all family members (Smith & Ford 2013). The main focus of
the family strength framework is to present what is right and wrong with particular family. The
advantage of this framework is that it does not focus only on negative points, it also indicates the
positive traits present in a family. Identifying strength is crucial to the growth and foundation of
the family. This universal framework effectively defines all strong families in the world as
families may differ on the basis of their culture, however the basic qualities mentioned in the
framework drives a family towards success and prosperity (Walsh 2013).
The family strength framework has been found useful in improving the health care
practice. For instance, the study by Sittner et al. (2007) has showed that with the use of family
strength framework, nurses can assess family strengths and determine the risk factor present in
families that affect the health of a patient. Based on this identification, the nurse can support
families to identify their role and promote recovery of the affected patient. Hence, it can be said
that the framework has found great application in family focused nursing.
The main goal of family focused nursing practice is to use practice model to plan clinical
priories for families and apply nursing models for care planning of individual families. The
nurses utilize the family strength framework and their critical thinking and critical judgment to
analyze situations in family and support family members to fulfill and manage the needs of the
family. They give the message to individual about the importance of family strength on well-
being of a person. They help to determine the coping process for families too (Masten & Monn
2015. Therefore, the family strength framework is turning out to be a conceptual model to guide
clinical interventions and take preventive steps for vulnerable families. It is now widely used in
the mental health field too empower clients and provide interventions based on family resources.

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The main goal of clinical intervention by using the framework is to reduce risk and vulnerability
in patient. Therapist often works with mentally disturbed client to find new possibilities to
reduce their problem in life and adapt future oriented stance to enhance well-being and
functioning of the person. They mental health staffs also focus on promoting process of
resilience in families so that personal and relational transformation in family is achieved (Caplan
2013).

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Reference
Barnes, M & Rowe, J 2013, ‘Locating the child, young person and family in contemporary
health care’, in M Barnes & J Rowe (eds), Child, youth and family health: strengthening
communities, Elsevier, Sydney, pp. 3-17.
Caplan, G., 2013., ‘An approach to community mental health (Vol. 3)’ Routledge.
Lamanna, M.A., Riedmann, A. & Stewart, S.D., 2014, Marriages, families, and relationships:
Making choices in a diverse society, Cengage Learning.
Masten, A.S. & Monn, A.R., 2015, ‘Child and family resilience: A call for integrated science,
practice, and professional training’ Family Relations, 64(1), pp.5-21.
Park, J.W., 2015, ‘Contemporary Family Portrait: The Hidden Uncomfortable Truth of Family
Dynamics’.
Sittner, B.J., Hudson, D.B. and Defrain, J., 2007. Using the concept of family strengths to
enhance nursing care. MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing, 32(6), pp.353-
357.
Smith, L & Ford, K 2013, 'Communicating with children, young people and families - A family
strengths-based approach', in M Barnes & J Rowe (eds), Child, youth and family health:
strengthening communities, Elsevier, Sydney, pp. 91-110.
Walsh, F., 2013, ‘Community-based practice applications of a family resilience framework.
In Handbook of family resilience (pp. 65-82)’ Springer New York.