Community-as-Partner model and his application to the work with families

Abstract

This paper presents the main elements of the Community-as-Partner model (Anderson and McFarlane, 1996), based on Betty Neuman's Systemic Model, which has been used as a guide to teach Community and Family Health Nursing at the School of Nursing of the Catholic University of Chile. The main concepts in this model are the Community and the Nursing Process. Other concepts of the model are described in each one of the stages of the process, with examples applied to communities and families. Families are considered as a community, by second year students, include in the assessment of the core components extracted from the Calgary Family Assessment Model and other scientific family related literature. We can conclude that the model has demonstrated to be very useful to teach community and family nursing in undergraduate education; that it has been necessary to use Betty Neuman's Systemic Model for a better understanding of the concepts and its relationships; and that the analysis and discussion among the faculty team of the community area has been of great importance in the understanding and application of concepts of the model.