After a productive meeting of the 21 IFNA members from the United Kingdom and Ireland at the IFNC12 in Denmark in August 2015,  it was agreed to establish a UK/Ireland Family Nursing Group.  A first virtual meeting (using the Go To Meeting platform and supported by Debbie from the IFNA office) took place September 23, 2015 when it was agreed that they would identify two co-leads to help take the network forward. Veronica Swallow and Sarah Kendal are the co-leaders and are meeting in January 2016 to draft aims, objectives and an action plan to circulate to the group for comments. Initial discussions have focused on shared research and education interests relating to family nursing. A 2nd virtual whole group meeting will take place in February 2016 . For more information contact IFNA member: Veronica Swallow.

Dr. Marie Louise Luttik is a senior researcher with the Research Group in Nursing Diagnostics and Family Care at Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen (the Netherlands). The research group was recently awarded 50.000 Euros by the Centre of Expertise Healthy Ageing in the North of the Netherlands to start a collaboration between care-, research-, and educational institutions, called an Innovation Lab in Family Care.  Recent changes in the Dutch health care system have called for a greater emphasis on family care.

The objective of this lab is to develop and promote family nursing in the Netherlands by implementing and testing a structured family nursing intervention based on the Family Health Conversations (FamHC) Intervention, developed by Drs. Eva Benzein and Britt-Inger Saveman in Sweden.  The FamHC Intervention is designed to strengthen family functioning and prevent family burden. Eighteen practicing nurses were recently taught how to use the FamHC Intervention in their clinical practice and a researcher is examining nurses’ and families’ experience of this family nursing intervention.  

For more information, contact IFNA member Marie Louise Luttik.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LuttikMarie 

Marcia Van Riper, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, recently received  a Fulbright US Senior Specialist Award which provides funding to develop linkages between U.S. scholars and their counterparts at host institutions overseas. Dr. Van Riper is visiting the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain where she is offering lectures and seminars on a variety of topics related to family nursing, family research, genomics, and the ethical, legal, and social implications of advances in genomics. This visit provides an opportunity to begin data collection with Spanish families of individuals with Down syndrome for her ongoing cross-cultural study on adaptation and resilience in families of individual with Down syndrome. Dr. Van Riper and her research team, many of whom are IFNA members, currently have data from over 1,300 parents in 10 countries (Brazil, Ireland, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Portugal, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States). Dr. Van Riper was recognized as a Fulbright Scholar in 2012-2013 to visit Ireland. Dr. Van Riper served as the First President of IFNA from 2010-2013.  For more information contact IFNA member, Marcia Van Riper,  Website: http://nursing.unc.edu/people/marcia-van-riper/

Read more about an interview with Dr. Marcia Van Riper.

Erla Kolbrun Svavarsdottir, PhD, RN, BSN, is a Professor and Academic Chair of Family Nursing at the Faculty of Nursing, University of Iceland and at Landspitali University Hospital. Her outstanding scholarship in translating family nursing practice knowledge to practice settings was recently honored by her 2015 induction as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.  Dr. Svavarsdottir served as the Principal Investigator of the Landspitali University Hospital Family Nursing Implementation Project in Reykjavik, Iceland, that took place from 2007 to 2011.  This implementation project resulted in the development of the Family Strength Oriented Therapeutic Conversation Intervention and in numerous published research reports using an experimental design to examine family and nurse outcomes across several populations in both inpatient and outpatient settings.  The project also resulted in the psychometric development of two new intervention research instruments.  Masters and doctoral students in the Faculty of Nursing, University of Iceland were included in this knowledge translation research through mentorships. Dr. Svavarsdottir has also studied persistence, resilience, coping health-related queality of life, well-being, violence in intimate relationships, and adaptation and integration in families who are living with chronic diseases in both Iceland and the United States. The impact of her research has resulted in increased awarness among nurse administrators as well as among researchers and clinicians about the importance of involving families in health care services. For more information contact IFNA member, Erla Svavarsdottir.