218655 Ecocultural Family Interview: A strengths-based approach to enhancing care plans and service delivery in an established community-based home visitation program

Tuesday, November 9, 2010 : 12:55 PM - 1:10 PM

Leah Jepson, MSW , Family & Community Health Division - Ecocultural Family Interview Project Manager, City of Milwaukee Health Department, Milwaukee, WI
The Ecocultural Family Interview (EFI) Project is a three-year research project embedded within Empowering Families of Milwaukee (EFM), a comprehensive home visitation program at the City of Milwaukee Health Department. Since its inception in 2006, EFM has demonstrated a 50% decrease in instances of low birth weight and prematurity for babies born in the program. To reduce health disparities further, EFM instituted the EFI Project in 2008 to help better identify families' physical and mental health, social, and economic needs. The EFI Project uses the Ecocultural Family Interview as an assessment tool, rather than utilizing traditional, multiple-choice assessment forms. The Ecocultural Family Interview is a strengths-based, guided conversation with families about their daily routine – how they plan, implement, and sustain family activities – and how this helps or hinders family functioning. Research has shown that the information revealed in a family's daily routine is what matters most in children's lives and serves as the best indicator of family well-being. Throughout the interviews, the researchers listen for the family's strengths, the resources and supports available to the family, any constraints or obstacles the family must live with, and how they problem-solve to overcome these challenges. The researchers hypothesize that, by asking these questions in this unique, open-ended manner, and asking the families to tell their stories in their own words, new information will be elicited. This information can then be used to create better care plans, and lead to even better outcomes for the EFM participants and their families.

Learning Areas:
Diversity and culture
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
1)Describe the improved birth and child outcomes achieved by this Milwaukee-based home visitation program; 2)Differentiate between the Ecocultural Family Interview and a more structured, fixed-answer assessment form; 3)Discuss how addressing family routines can uncover strengths and barriers that affect how a family meets their needs; 4)Identify common themes emerging in the EFI interviews; 5)Demonstrate how to code and score the interviews by social determinants of health; 5)Explain how the information uncovered in the Ecocultural Family Interviews can be used to implement change in family care planning and social service delivery.

Keywords: Child Health, Home Visiting

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I received my Masters in Social Work in 2000 from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, and have been a licensed advanced-practice social worker in the state of Wisconsin since 2001. For the past thirteen years I have worked with pregnant women and families with young children, and in the last five years have been active in community-based advocacy coalitions to improve access to health care and coverage. I am currently the Program Coordinator of the Ecocultural Family Interview Project and an elected council member of HealthWatch Wisconsin.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.