https://www.infirmiere-canadienne.com/blogs/ic-contenu/2025/03/10/conseils-de-residents-et-familles-partie-2
Q&A series considers what facilities did before councils, how to implement councils and more
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Resident and family councils can be beneficial to nursing and care staff in LTC homes in several ways. First and foremost, effective councils can serve as a forum for open and honest communication between leadership, staff, residents and families.
Editor’s note: This article is an instalment of a four-part Q&A series that examines the role and function of resident and family councils in long-term care homes. Part 1 was published on March 3. Part 3 will be published on March 17. Part 4 will be published on March 24.
Before resident and family councils, how did people who live in long-term care homes make their wants and needs known?
Before the establishment of resident and family councils, long-term care (LTC) home residents and their families had to rely on more informal and individualized methods to make their needs and preferences known.
These methods could include direct communication with caregivers and facility staff, raising concerns or complaints with the LTC home’s administration, participation in surveys and feedback forms distributed by the LTC home, and informal gatherings or meetings with other residents or family members to discuss common concerns.
These methods put the onus on individuals, making it more difficult to be heard or follow up compared to the current system of resident and family councils, which provide a more structured and representative way for residents and families to draw upon their living experiences, voice their opinions, and advocate for collective change.
Our research during the pandemic showed that although pandemic management policies such as strict visitation rules in LTC homes curbed the spread of the virus, these policies had unintended adverse impacts on the psychological health and well-being of residents and their families. Our research concluded that involving residents and families in the decision-making process using a systematic approach, such as through councils, would have helped mitigate or bring to light some of these unintended adverse impacts more quickly.
This evidence supports the importance of resident and family councils due to the opportunities they offer for eliciting feedback and engaging with residents and families in a systematic and structured approach.
If a nurse or LTC administrator were looking to implement resident and family councils in their facility, what would you recommend as the first step?
The first step would be sharing this information with the care home residents and their families as broadly as possible to identify and connect with those interested in supporting this work.
One means of doing so is by sharing a short film that our research team put out, based on our findings, that includes resident and family council members’ perspectives on councils, how they work and how transformative they can be for resident quality of life.
In B.C., once interested members are recruited, they can be connected with the Independent Long-Term Care Councils Association of BC, which represents the collective voice of LTC councils across each health authority in the province. The regional associations consist of willing and experienced representatives who regularly help with establishing new councils and supporting the operation of existing councils within their affiliated regional health authority.
Other Canadian provinces have similar organizations, such as the Family Councils of Ontario.
What are the benefits of resident and family councils to nursing and other care staff in LTC homes?
Resident and family councils can be beneficial to nursing and care staff in LTC homes in several ways.
First and foremost, effective councils can serve as a forum for open and honest communication between leadership, staff, residents and families. Through listening to resident and family concerns and feedback, leadership and staff can gain a better understanding of the collective needs and preferences of those they are caring for. This process can help improve relationships and foster a more collaborative care environment, leading to more effective care provision.
In addition, effectively performing councils provide a platform and a process to identify common concerns or issues that affect residents, allowing leadership and staff to address those issues at a systemic level and improve the overall quality of care provision in the LTC home.
When staff feel they are working in partnership with residents and their families to meet their professional standards of care and code of ethics, they experience greater job satisfaction and subsequently a decreased likelihood of leaving their jobs.
What factors contribute to the effective performance of councils?
To gain an understanding of what factors contribute to a council’s effectiveness, our research team at UBC HOPE Lab conducted a qualitative study that spoke with five focus groups and two interviews, reaching a total of 17 LTC residents, families, leaders and advocates.
Our findings showed a series of six overarching factors that contribute to the effective functioning of LTC councils:
- Communication practices: Ongoing, transparent and two-way communication between councils and LTC leadership and staff has been highly effective.
- Council structure and meetings: Well-structured council meetings are characterized by recording and distributing meeting minutes, following a term of reference and a code of conduct, having clearly defined council participant roles, and running council meetings independent of LTC leadership.
- Active recruitment: Councils that put in ongoing efforts to recruit and engage new participants to join are more effective in maintaining continuity, even when existing members are no longer able to participate.
- Council leadership: Councils led by skilled and experienced council members with strong interpersonal skills are considered by participants to be the most effective.
- LTC leadership and staff perceptions: Positive perceptions and attitudes about the council by leadership and staff improve working relationships and a willingness to listen and respond to feedback from residents and families.
- Access to key resources and supports: To operate effectively, councils need key resources such as having a private space to meet and equipment to run the meeting (e.g., tables and chairs, microphone and speaker, etc.). For residents, having a designated staff member who would serve as a meeting facilitator was considered essential to accommodate residents with disabilities and other barriers to participation.
A visual depiction of our key findings can be found on the UBC HOPE Lab website.
Additionally, we used our qualitative data to develop a preliminary tool that allows LTC resident and family councils to systematically assess their own areas of strengths and weaknesses in order to identify how effective they are and where they may need to improve.
Dr. Farinaz (Naz) Havaei, PhD, is an associate professor in the University of British Columbia’s School of Nursing and the founder and director of the HOPE Lab. She has a passion for improving the quality and safety of health-care services.
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