Disabled children's services: how do we measure family-centred care?

Family-centred care has been defined as a philosophy of care where families are supported in their decision-making roles in an equal partnership with professionals. The research question was 'How "family centred'' do staff and parents perceive their work with disabled children and young people?' A questionnaire, the Measure of Processes of Care for Service Providers (MPOC-SP), was used as a basis for designing focus groups and interview questions. Staff and parents took part in these and data were analysed using an editing approach. Staff described how they adapted their service to meet parental needs and empowered and enabled parents despite receiving no specific training in FCC. Parents spoke highly of the staff input and gave varied descriptions of the attributes they most valued, including feeling supported and being in an equal partnership. Investigation of the influence of focused FCC training on parental experiences is warranted.