%0 Journal Article
%T A Conceptual Model Facilitating the Transition of Involuntary Migrant Families
%A Kerstin Linn¨¦a Samarasinghe
%J ISRN Nursing
%D 2011
%R 10.5402/2011/824209
%X Refugee families face a complex transition due to the nature of involuntary migration and the process of acculturation. There are several risk factors to the family adaptation process during the transition period, which are sociocontextually environmental dependant. Facilitating a healthy transition for refugee families, therefore, requires the role of nursing to incorporate sociopolitics into the discipline. This paper introduces a sociopolitically oriented and community-driven assessment and intervention model which is based on a family systematic approach. Interventions that aid the families in their acculturation process as well as empowers them to a well-functioning daily life, as per the SARFI model, should be adopted. As such, the future of nursing may provide additional primary health care services for refugee families; this is through a team-led ¡°family nurse¡± who provides quality care for the family unit in collaboration with other health care professionals and societal authorities. 1. Introduction Transitions in general are concepts of interest to researchers within the field of nursing due to their impact on emotional and physical wellness [1]. As such, effective health promotion should take into consideration transitional factors within the sociocontextual environment that are constraining to family health. Primary Health Care Nurses (PHCNs) who work with migrant families need to focus on these contextual relationships, by gaining an understanding of the external sociocontextual environment in which migrant families live, which in turn are hurdles to achieving a healthy transition. The empirical approach to health promotion research should therefore attempt to contextualise the relationships and causal mechanisms that affect the health of the study participants. Nursing research can as such further contribute to national as well as global health promotion policies, even taking nursing research into the sociopolitical arena. This contention is supported by D. Whitehead [2] who predicted that health promotion in nursing would advance towards a sociopolitically oriented and community-driven agenda in the future. The focus of this paper is the Samarasinghe Refugee Family Intervention Model¡ªSARFI (Figure 1). This is a sociopolitically oriented and community-driven assessment and intervention model which enables nurses to uncover external sociocontextual environmental conditions, in turn facilitating the healthy transition for involuntary migrant families. Figure 1: A conceptual model for assessment and intervention of involuntary migrant
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.nursing/2011/824209/