Implementing and evaluating a professional practice framework in child and family health nursing: a pilot project.

Aim: This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of the NSW Child and Family Health Nursing Professional Practice Framework in one health district in New South Wales, Australia.

Background: Child and family health nurses provide specialised, community based primary health care to families with children 0-5 years. A state wide professional practice framework was recently developed to support child and family health nurses.

Doing clinical research: the challenges and benefits.

The need for research in practice is well documented within nursing and other health care disciplines. This acceptance is predicated on the belief that clinically applied research will inform and improve practice and health service delivery resulting in better outcomes for consumers and their families. Nurses, however, find doing clinical research challenging.

The value of new parent groups in child and family health nursing.

A reorganization of child and family health nursing services followed policy changes in New South Wales, Australia, in the late 1990s. However, the introduction of universal and sustained home visiting to all new parents limited resources available to provide support groups for new parents. This qualitative research study used a case study approach to examine the impact of new parents' group attendance on mothers and on mothers' interactions with their baby.