Nursing education in Spain includes a 4-year bachelor degree, in which the care of families has been integrated in the nursing curriculum, as well as masters and doctoral education. In 2010, an option began of pursuing 2-year postgraduate education to become a specialist in one of the seven nationally-certified specialties, including specialist in family and community nursing. Family Systems Nursing began in Spain at the University of Navarra. In 2009, Dr. Lorraine Wright (Canada) introduced the Calgary Family Assessment and Intervention Models to a committed Spanish audience of practitioners, managers, and educators who decided to implement family nursing in education, practice, and research.  Since then, many initiatives in family nursing have been implemented, including seminars for practitioners, training for undergraduate and postgraduate students, doctoral theses, and research projects. The 13th International Family Nursing Conference in June 2017 in Pamplona will be an opportunity to improve visibility of family nursing in Spain and advance the care of families globally. There are currently 3 IFNA members from Spain (update: January 2017).

For more information about Family Nursing in Spain, contact IFNA member Dr. Cristina Garcia-Vivar.

This News Post was featured in the IFNA January 2017 Newsletter.

The IFNA Practice Committee is very pleased to announce the development of a new groundbreaking IFNA Position Statement on Advanced Practice Competencies for Family Nursing (APC-FN) which is now ready for IFNA member review and comment. This new IFNA Position Statement (APC-FN) outlines the competencies for advanced practice family nurses to guide the care of families in all settings and provides a focus for nursing education, theory, and research related to advanced practice family nursing.  The APC-FN builds on the IFNA Position Statement on Generalist Competencies for Family Nursing Practice released in 2015.

Process for Review:

January 18, 2017: IFNA Position Statement on APC-FN approved by IFNA Practice Committee

February 9, 2017: IFNA Position Statement on APC-FN approved by IFNA Board of Directors for IFNA member review

Deadline for feedback from IFNA members: March 27, 2017

Please provide your feedback in written form on the APC-FN document itself using the Track Changes function in Microsoft Word to submit your edits and comments. Send your edits and comments to Dr. Kathy Anderson, Co-Chair of the IFNA Practice Committee by March 27, 2017.  The revised document will be submitted to the IFNA Board of Directors for final approval, prior to dissemination of the final document. Thank you for your specific edits and comments.

Feedback from across our international community of IFNA members is urgently needed to ensure this document about APC-FN is culturally appropriate and extends nursing knowledge about advanced practice with families.

Kyoko Kobayashi, PhD, RN, PHN, is a Professor in Child Health Nursing, Graduate School of Nursing Sciences, St. Luke’s International University, Tokyo, Japan.  She was a Fulbright scholar at University of Pennsylvania, USA where she conducted research and observed practice with families. She is proposing a nurse-led survivorship care clinic and educational program for pediatric oncology nurses in Japan. Through a combination of research and clinical practice (providing health check-ups for cancer survivors, conducting family interviews, and providing educational support to survivors and families) she hopes to document the usefulness of nurse-led survivorship care and evaluate the efficacy of this approach of caring for the family. Dr. Kobayashi currently serves as a member of IFNA Resource Advancement Committee. For more information contact IFNA member, Kyoko Kobayashi.