University Report: Contemporary Family and Family Strength Framework

This report provides a comprehensive review of the contemporary family, acknowledging its evolution beyond traditional structures to include diverse forms such as unmarried couples, same-sex couples, and blended families. It introduces the Family Strength Framework (FSF) as a tool for assessing family dynamics, outlining its eight key dimensions: commitment, affection, togetherness, communication, resilience, sharing activities, support, and acceptance. The report then explores the practical application of the FSF in healthcare, highlighting how healthcare practitioners can utilize the framework to identify family strengths, assist families in coping with crises, and improve communication to enhance patient outcomes. It emphasizes the importance of family relationships in patient well-being and suggests strategies for promoting family commitment, support, and affection. The report concludes by referencing relevant literature to support its analysis, demonstrating the framework's significance in fostering patient-centered care and improving overall health outcomes.

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Contemporary family and Family Strength Framework
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Contemporary family and Family Strength Framework
Review of the concept of family in contemporary society
Traditionally, a family refers to a structured patriarchal institution that consists of a
father, mother, and children living together under one roof (Shapiro, 2008). However, due to the
societal changes, a contemporary 21st-century society has ignored the traditional prototype to
introduce a new meaning to a family. In the contemporary society, a family can consist married
couples who have children but are not living together under one roof. This is due to the
numerous incidents of separations resulting from different types of misunderstanding between
couples, which forces one-half of the couple to live separately yet they still form a family. A
family in a contemporary society also refer to unmarried couples who have children but and are
cohabiting or not living together at all (Shapiro, 2008). A family in the contemporary society can
refer to a childless couple who live together but have adopted a child. The couple becomes the
parents of the child through adoption. Finally, families in the contemporary society also refer to
same sex couples who have chosen to live together as a family. This type of family has emerged
due to the increased push for the rights of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT)
individuals. This type of family forms a large percentage of those who adopt and raise children.
Family strength framework description
The Family Strength Framework (FSF) is a nursing tool that consists of eight major
dimensions that used to determine the strength of a family as described below.
i. Commitment: The level of focus that family members have placed on promoting the
happiness, relationships, and the welfare of the family.

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ii. Affection: How a family promotes personal value and self-worth of every family member
(Arshat, Baharudin, Juhari, Hasbullah, & Ishak, 2012).
iii. Togetherness: The degree of unity that exists within a given family.
iv. Communication: The family uses effective conversation and listening skills to address
issues that are affecting them as a family
v. Resilience: The ability of the family to handle crisis and stressful situations that they
encounter.
vi. Sharing activities: How well a family divide and share responsibilities amongst the
members. It also refers to how well-balanced the family members are committed to
activities within and outside the family.
vii. Support: How well the family members help one another to deal with the situations that
are affecting them, for example, during grief or illnesses.
viii. Acceptance: How the family members accept one another as their member and how this
contributes to the bond and love for one another in the family.
Family strength framework application to health care practice
There are several ways through which the FSF can be applied in the health care service.
For an affective application, the health care practitioners can use the FSF to identify the strengths
of a family based on the eight dimension and developing an appropriate feedback for use in
health care service delivery.
A health care practitioner can use the FSF to help a family to effectively cope with crisis
and stressful events (Zarnaghash, Zarnaghash, & Zarnaghash, 2013). During a health care
program, a care provider can use the resilience dimension of the FSF to provide a family with

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consistent information to use to acquire counseling services to enable them to overcome the
stressful factors (Sallee, Giardino, & Sanborn, 2012). Here, the care provider will also be
required to boost positive communication among members of the involved family by utilizing
effective listening skills and by establishing trust to help the family members to be free with one
another and also with their counselor to improve patient outcome during the counseling period.
Care providers can also apply FSF to help families to boost family relationship by
carrying out an assessment of the family’s degree of support and commitment to both short and
long term relationship. A healthy family depends on the strength of the relationship that exists
among the family members (DeFrain & Stinnett, 2002). This is because factors such as
dependability, honesty, and support for one another contributes significantly to the emotional and
physical well-being of an individual. In this regard, due to the associated health benefits, care
providers need to promote a family’s commitment to one another, particularly during sickness.
Finally, care providers can also enlighten family members on how to show support and
affection to their sick members. In cases of where there is a lack of sufficient affection and
support for one another, a care provider can develop strategies to help boost the family members’
togetherness and love for one another. For example, the involvement of a patient’s family
member in developing the treatment plan of a patient helps in the development of a patient-
centered care plan that improves patient outcome (Sittner, & Hudson, Defrain, 2007). Besides,
patient’s visits by family members play a major part in boosting the emotional and physical well-
being of a patient.

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Bibliography list
Arshat, Z., Baharudin, R., Juhari, R., Hasbullah, M, & Ishak, N. R., 2012, Research report of
Development Malaysian Family Strengths Scale, Funded by Ministry of Higher Learning.
DeFrain, J., & Stinnett, N., 2002, Family strengths, In J. J. Ponzetti, Jr. (Ed.), International
encyclopedia of marriage and family (2nd ed., pp. 637-642). Macmillan: New York, NY.
Sallee, Alvin; Giardino, Angelo P.; and Sanborn, R. D., 2012, ‘Family Strengths: A Long
Tradition’, Journal of Family Strengths, Vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1-2.
Shapiro, S., 2008, ‘The Theme of the Family in Contemporary Society and Positive Family
Psychology’, Journal lf family Psychotherapy, Vol. 15, no. 1-2, pp. 19-38.
Sittner, B. J. & Hudson, D. B., Defrain, J., 2007. ‘Using the concept of family strengths to
enhance nursing care’, MCN Am J Matern Child Nurs. Vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 353-357.
Zarnaghash, M., Zarnaghash, M., & Zarnaghash, N., 2013, ‘The relationship between family
communication patterns and mental health’, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 84, pp. 405 –
410.