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What's Your Question About Nursing Homes?
By Sherry Culp - April, 2009
Question:
What is a Family Council?
Answer:
A family council is an organized group of relatives and friends of a nursing home's residents who meet on a regular basis to discuss issues and concerns regarding the home.
Question:
What is the purpose of a Family Council?
Answer:
The main purpose of most family councils is to protect and improve the quality of life in the home and to give families a voice in decisions that affect them and their loved ones in the facility. Specific purposes vary greatly from council to council. Some examples include: support for families; education and information; discussion and action on concerns and complaints; services and activities for residents; joint activities for families and residents.
Question:
What are the benefits of a Family Council?
Answer:
Effective family councils benefit families, residents, and the homes in which they are involved. Family councils allow families to give each other the support, encouragement, and information they need. No one knows as well as a family member how difficult it is to place a loved one in a nursing home. Even after placement, families continue to share similar concerns, problems and questions. Council involvement helps provide family members an opportunity to express their ideas and concerns and a way to work for positive change. Residents of the home are also likely to benefit from the family council. Family involvement helps make a nursing home more homelike. Residents also benefit from council efforts to improve the quality of life in the home. Family council involvement can especially benefit residents who are physically or mentally unable to voice their concerns and needs for themselves. The nursing home also receives benefits. Councils allow the nursing home staff to deal directly with family concerns and ideas, to convey needed information to families, and to establish meaningful lines of communication. The nursing home administrative staff may be able to use the family council as a sounding board for new ideas.
Question:
How are Family Councils organized and structured?
Answer:
Some family councils are started by interested families or friends or by nursing home volunteers or community leaders. Other councils are initially started by nursing home staff. Although the organizational structures of family councils vary greatly, there are some common features of most councils. Family councils are run by friends and relatives of the home's residents, choose their own topics, have elected leadership, meet on a regular basis, and have some method for exchanging information with nursing home staff. A family council is not "family night". Family night is a name used in many nursing homes for occasional educational or social functions planned and hosted by the nursing home staff for families and friends of the home's residents. While these programs may be beneficial, they are different than a family council which is run by the relatives and friends themselves.
Question:
Do relatives and friends have a right to organize a Family Council?
Answer:
Yes. All citizens have constitutional rights to organize and meet to discuss issues of concern. Kentucky law also gives family members of nursing home residents the right to present concerns without retaliation. Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes must allow family councils to operate and must provide meeting space in the facility for their activities. For more information please contact the Nursing Home Ombudsman Agency office at 1-877-787-0077.
This column is presented as a public service of the Nursing Home Ombudsman Agency of the Bluegrass. If you have a question, send it to:
Sherry Culp
Nursing Home Ombudsman Agency
1530 Nicholasville Rd.
Lexington, KY, 40503