University Nursing: Family Assessment Report and Findings

This report is a nursing assignment that conducts a family assessment of the Cameron family using the Calgary Family Assessment Model, examining structural, developmental, and functional domains. The assessment includes a review of interview data, a genogram, and an ecomap to understand family dynamics and relationships. The report identifies the absence of grandparents and maternal employment as key challenges, impacting the younger child's development and the mother's mental health. The report also highlights the family's strengths, such as the couple's strong relationship and resilience. The student reflects on the assessment process, emphasizing the importance of family support systems and resilience in managing life stressors. The conclusion underscores the impact of family composition and resilience on overall well-being, suggesting the need for strategies to support families and address challenges like maternal employment.

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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Introduction:
Family assessment is a critical process that focuses on evaluating family composition, the
strength and weakness of families and its impact on health of an individual. This form of
assessment can help to predict individual health issues and evaluating the role and influence of
family member is important as family strongly experience daily life experiences and
development of each member (Yarwood, Richardson & Watson, 2016). This papers looks to
engage in family assessment by interviewing a family and understanding its impact on the child.
To protect confidentiality of the family, a fictitious name has been given. The essay discusses
about the strength and challenges identified through family assessment.
Assessment of the family interview data:
The family assessment has been done for the Cameron family whose interview detail is
given appendix. The interview has been completed using the Calgary family assessment model.
It is a common family assessment model which is most common used by family nurses and it
mainly focussed on assessment of structural, developmental and functional domains of a family
(Leahey & Wright, 2016). The review of the structural assessment response during the interview
shows that the Cameron family consists of two couples, Cameron Smith and Caron Smith, who
have two children aged five years and 11 years. Although they have an extended family, they do
not live with them. Absence of grandparents for children or elder members for the couple has
been identified as a major issue for the family as Cameron Smith and her wife have struggled to
provide appropriate care to their children as both of them are out for work. This has affected
overall development of their younger child and contributed to stress and worries for Caron Smith
too. Dunifon (2013) argues that as family size has decreased over the years and there is increase

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in maternal employment, the need for child care has increased. If either Cameron or Caron’s
parents had been living with the couple, then they would not have to struggle in raising their
child. Grandparents have a crucial role in not only decreasing parent’s stress but also increasing
well-being, social engagement, maturity and mental health and development of children
(Dunifon, 2013).
The review of the developmental and functional response of the family interview is an
important data that clearly shows the issues for the younger child of the family and its impact on
overall family health. Because of the lack of presence of both Caron and Cameron throughout the
day, their two children’s care depends on a day carer. The younger child is found to shows poor
developmental progress as he is inattentive and shows little interest in social activities. The
younger child is taking time in learning common things that children at this age learn. The
critical analysis of the cause behind such issues shows that maternal employment is the major
cause behind poor development outcome of the children. During childhood, parent’s personality
and behaviour quality has a greater impact on development of a child’s personality. However,
because of long attendance in the workplace for mothers, lack of mother’s physical presence at
home has adverse impact on emotional development of a child. Social adjustment and
educational progress also gets affected because of mother’s employment and long working hours
(Aghdam et al., 2015). This shows the failure of Caron in balancing professional and parenting
responsibilities properly.l
Genogram of the family and its application to the family assessment process:
The genogram of the family can also aid in completing family assessment properly. The
following is the genogram for the Cameron family:

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Figure 1: Genogram of the Cameron family
This genogram shows that it is a short family and both Caron and Cameron have no
siblings. In addition, both are separated from their parents and lives alone with their children.
This shows the family relationship and proximity of each family member. This genogram details
can be applied to estimate the cohesiveness of family. At present, the family well-being is
affected because due to absence of grandparents at home, the stress level of Caron has increased
and she has failed to take care of her children as required. Pulgaron et al. (2016) supports that
Grand
father
Grand
mother
mo
Grand father
Grand
mother
Cameron
Smith
Caron
Smith
Son (5
years)
Daughter (11
years)

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grandparents act as secondary caregivers for children when parents are absent and their presence
have an impact on children’s physical and psychological health outcomes. This explains the
reason behind poor development and social interaction of the younger child of the Cameron
family.
Ecogram and its application to the family assessment process:
Cameron family
School
Office
Mental health
counsellor
Neighbour
Relatives
Health care
Church

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Figure 2: Ecogram of the Cameron family
The above ecomap of the Cameron family shows the social and personal relationship of
the family with their environment. This information is critical for family assessment too as it
shows that the Cameron family are actively involved in professional work and education of their
children. They go to church, have good contact with neighbours and visit health care as required
too. However, they have lack of contact with relatives and they have never visited a mental
health counsellor. Considering the fact that the couple are living a stressful life, have poor
contact with mental health services and they have limited opportunities for social contact too.
This can explain the reason behind depressive symptom of Caron and poor development
outcome of the younger children.
Strength and challenges identified for the family:
From the family assessment, it has been identified that strong relationship between the
Cameron couple is one strength as they both have understood their responsibilities and taken the
decision to work together for family well-being. The will power of Cameron to overcome family
crisis despite Caron’s recent issues of depression is a strength as it this ensure that Cameron can
make the family reunite and back in optimal health again. His determination to manage all the
family responsibility is a sign of family resilience and family resilience is a protective factor that
can help a family to meet challenges in life and work through them in a positive way (Power et
al., 2016). However, some of the challenges identified for the family are the lack of grandparents
or elder members who could provide social and emotional support to both the couples and their
children. Because of this, Caron was suffering from poor mental health and her younger child
was showing poor social and mental development.

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Critical reflection of undertaking family assessment process:
By completing the family assessment process, I have learnt how various structural,
functional and developmental domain of a family has impact on their overall health and well-
being. Conducting the assessment of Cameron family interview data strengthened my knowledge
regarding ways to understand factors that contributes to poor health. I learnt how elder member
or grandparents of the family is crucial for helping modern parents to balance family needs as
well as professional needs. In case of Cameron’s family, it has been identified that Caron was
under too much pressure as she was handling both work and family responsibilities. However,
her long work hours affected her ability to take care of her child and this eventually had impact
on her overall mental health. The research evidence by Pilkauskas (2014) shows that
grandparents are the members who play a vital role in providing instrumental as well as emotion
support to improve quality of life of children and parents. Their interaction with children in the
form of talking, playing and discussing emotions with children plays a role in improving
cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes of children. Hence, the most important lesson from this
family assessment is that grandparent co-residence is necessary for improving family health. I
have also learnt that resilience of family members particularly parent is critical as this can ensure
that any challenges or life stressors are adequately dealt with and family functioning is not
affected by it (Walsh, 2015).
Conclusion:
The family assessment using the Calgary model for the Cameron family revealed that
family composition, co-residence with grandparents and resilience of elder members plays a
crucial role in the well-being of the family. Because of Caron’s absence at home for long time

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and no other family members at home, the younger child’s social and cognitive development was
found to be affected. Caron was also suffering from depressive symptoms because of her
inability to take care of her children. However, resilience and good parenting skills has been
recognized as strength of the families. The paper gives the implication that all family members
must focus on developing resilience so that can positively encounter life challenges and properly
deal with it without affecting family health.

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References:
Aghdam, F. B., Ahmadzadeh, S., Hassanalizadeh, Z., Ebrahimi, F., Sabzmakan, L., &
Javadivala, Z. (2015). The effect of maternal employment on the elementary and junior
high school students’ mental health in Maku. Global journal of health science, 7(2), 379.
Dunifon, R. (2013). The influence of grandparents on the lives of children and adolescents. Child
Development Perspectives, 7(1), 55-60.
Leahey, M., & Wright, L. M. (2016). Application of the Calgary Family Assessment and
Intervention Models: reflections on the reciprocity between the personal and the
professional. Journal of family nursing, 22(4), 450-459.
Pilkauskas, N. V. (2014). Living with a grandparent and parent in early childhood: Associations
with school readiness and differences by demographic characteristics. Developmental
psychology, 50(12), 2587.
Power, J., Goodyear, M., Maybery, D., Reupert, A., O’Hanlon, B., Cuff, R., & Perlesz, A.
(2016). Family resilience in families where a parent has a mental illness. Journal of
Social Work, 16(1), 66-82.
Pulgaron, E. R., Marchante, A. N., Agosto, Y., Lebron, C. N., & Delamater, A. M. (2016).
Grandparent involvement and children’s health outcomes: The current state of the
literature. Families, Systems, & Health, 34(3), 260.
Walsh, F. (2015). Strengthening family resilience. Guilford Publications.

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Yarwood, J., Richardson, A., & Watson, P. (2016). PUBLIC HEALTH
NURSES'ENDEAVOURS WITH FAMILIES USING THE 15 MINUTE
INTERVIEW. Nursing Praxis in New Zealand, 32(3).