Partnering With Families to Improve Emotional Health Care for Children with Chronic Conditions

What happens when patients and families help design the very systems meant to support them?

For the Roadmap for Emotional Health Project, the answer is clear: you get an approach that reflects what really matters to patients and families, tools and resources that are easy to use and sustainable, and practical strategies for helping clinicians assess emotional well‑being.

“Partnering With Patients and Families on the Roadmap for Emotional Health,” a recent article published in the Journal of Participatory Research Methods, highlights how collaboration with patients, families, clinicians, and improvement teams can transform care. Engaging families throughout all phases of the project strengthened feasibility, improved the relevance of outcome measures, increased cultural responsiveness, and centered the importance of emotional health support as a standard component for achieving high quality care.