Family Council Center
Information, Tips and Tools
Family members in a facility can join together to form a united consumer voice which can communicate concerns to facility administrators and work for resolutions and improvements by forming a family council. Family councils can play a crucial role in voicing concerns, requesting improvements, supporting new family members and residents, and supporting facility efforts to make care and life in the facility the best it can be. Join and support the family council at your loved one's facility! If no family council exists, join with other family members to form one.
This page contains information on Consumer Voice Projects related to family councils, family council rights that are protected by federal law, regulations applying to long-term care facilities, effective council advocacy and tools for forming an effective council.
Return to Top
Below are materials you can use to assist you as you start and maintain your family council:
Return to Top
Return to Top
Improve long-term care in your area, and across the U.S.!
- Visit Consumer Voice's Government Policy Section
- View up-to-date information on Congressional Hearings, Bulletins, Legislative Proposals, etc.
- Access policy tools and information.
- Learn about ways to get involved as an advocate.
- Learn and advocate for restraint free care using resources and materials from Consumer Voice's California California Voices for Quality: Strategies in the National Campaign for Excellence in America's Nursing Homes project
- The project provides information and tools to train ombudsmen to engage consumers in quality improvement, by educating and engaging consumers to advance better quality care innursing homes. Consumer-oriented materials, including fact sheets, have been developed; training programs and educational conference calls were held; and materials are posted on the website.
- Advocate Effectively
- Read a list of suggestions for advocacy tips as you advocate for yourself or yourloved one, includinghow to document concerns.
- Contact the long-term care ombudsman program in your state
- In addition to acting as an advocate for residents, ombudsmen can educate residents, families and friends about resident rights, state surveys, and federal and state laws that are applicable to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
- Participate in the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes Campaign
- Consumer Voice encourages all consumers to participate in this national campaign. This is an opportunity to promote quality care practices in every nursing home in the country.
- Learn more about Consumer Voice's involvement in the Campaign, and ways you can get involved!
- Visit Consumer Voice's Resident-Directed Care of "Culture Change " website to learn about the grassroots movement to transform the culture of aging in America.
- Visit the Nursing Home Compare website
- This is a tool on the Medicare website thatdisplays quality measure data, deficiencies and other information about nursing homes. It is organized by state and county to help you search for facilities near you or anywhere in the country.
Return to Top
View fact sheets for family members with consumer-friendly information on issues affecting residents such as residents' rights, malnutrition, the use of restraints, and changing the culture of long-term care facilities.
Maryland: Tips for the First Weeks in a Nursing Home
Maryland: Sugerencias y Información para las Primeras Semanas en el Asilo de Ancianos (en Español)
Return to Top
Learn more about Consumer Voice projects related to family members and family councils.
- Consumer Voice's Family Councils for Quality Long Term Care: Support, Strengthen and Empower project, funded by the Frances Lane Memorial Family Council Fund of the Edward H. Lane Foundation.
- Consumer Voice is working with Virginia family councils, providing mini-grants, and with national family councils, providing support, networking and education
- This discussion group is a listserv that enables you to send messages to others in the group, and look at previous discussions. It is for family councils across the U.S., and allows family council members to network with one another, share successes, accomplishments, and challenges, converse and get feedback, and learn about resources and opportunities available for family councils through Consumer Voice. This discussion group/listserv is confidential – it is only open to family council members and family members. It is not open to ombudsmen and facility staff.
- Subscribe to the discussion group listserv:
- Consumer Voice's Illinois Family Council Project
- Consumer Voice partnered with Illinois Citizens’ for Better Care (ICBC) to help family members of nursing home residents in Illinois to organize family councils.
- Consumer Voice's Giving Voice to Quality project
- The project trained nursing home residents and their families nationwide through:a series of six teleconference seminars during 2006; a web-based consumer education center and the development and electronic distribution of materials toseminar participants. Calls are available on CD for purchase, and address the following topics: Resident-Directed Care Planning; Restraint-Free Nursing HomeCare; Residents' Rights; Communication; Eating with Dignity; Incontinence and Quality Care.
- Consumer Voice's Maryland Family Council Project
Return to Top
The Family Council Exchange provides family councils across the country with sample bylaws, minutes, agendas, fliers, newsletters and other council materials, in the hopes that the documents and ideas will be helpful to other councils in their daily advocacy work.
The materials provided in the Family Council Exchange have been provided to Consumer Voice by councils across the country, along with permission to post the materials. The posting of these materials is not to be construed as an endorsement by Consumer Voice of the content of any of these materials, nor does Consumer Voice condone or take any responsibility for the content and/or the accuracy of the information in the materials.
Does your council have materials you’d like to share in the Exchange? E-mail Jessica Brill, Program Manager, at info@theconsumervoice.org. Please be sure to put Family Council Exchange in the subject line of your e-mail.
- Monthly Newsletter: Family Council Matters, Formulated by the family council at the Minnesota Veterans Home (MVH) - Minneapolis.
- During Consumer Voice's work with family members in Maryland through the MD Family Council project, family councils shared materials that other family councils might find useful.They have given Consumer Voice permission to post them here for others to view and use. Feel free to print or cut and paste from the materials below to use for your own family council. If you have materials that you think might be useful to others in Maryland, please let us know!
- Survey Used to Identify Common Concerns, Formulated by the family council at Westminster Care and Rehabilitation, Carroll County, MD, May 2000
- Family Council Bylaws, Formulated by the family council at Holy Cross Nursing andRehab Ctr., Burtonsville, MD
- Membership Form, Formulated by the family council at Holy Cross Nursing andRehab Ctr., Burtonsville, MD
- Sample Flier
- View additional sample family council materials including bylaws on the Voices for Quality Care website
- Family Council Questionnaire for Family Members and Friends, Formulated by Westminster Nursing Home Family Council
- Family Council Public Meeting Announcement, Formulated by Relatives and Friends Council of Isabella
- Family Council Membership Application, Formulated by Relatives and Friends Council of Isabella
- Family Council Monthly Meeting Flier, Formulated by Relatives and Friends Council of Isabella
- Family Council Courtesy Guide, Formulated by Relatives and Friends Council of Isabella
- Family Council Bylaws, Formulated by Birmingham Green Family Council
- Family Council Meeting Agenda, Formulated by Birmingham Green Family Council
- Family Council Minutes, Formulated by Birmingham Green Family Council
- Family Council Newsletter, Formulated by Advocates of Nursing Home Residents
Return to Top
In addition to acting as an advocate for residents, ombudsmen can educate residents, families and friends about resident rights, state surveys, and federal and state laws that are applicable to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Find contact information for the long-term care ombudsman in your state.
Return to Top
Consumer Voice's DVD "Strength In Numbers: The Importance of Family Councils in Nursing Homes" is an important tool for any family member interested in working with others to improve conditions at their loved one's nursing home. Enhance your knowledge of what a family council is, how to build a strong one, or how to advocate effectively as part of a family council. The DVD contains a companion booklet - Program Leader’s Guide with discussion guidance, additional resources, fact sheets and other information.
Price: $30.00 per DVD or 4 DVDs for $100.00. Contact Consumer Voice at (202) 332-2275 to order a copy.
Return to Top
- Family Council Manual and Toolkit: A Guide for Creating and Sustaining Effective Family Councils in Nursing Homes, by FRIA, the voice and resource for eldercare with dignity in New York. It is a basic, how-to manual for those wanting to take on the job of family council leader and a comprehensive resource for experienced leaders facing new issues. It includes a CD-Rom Tool Kit, consisting of reproducible sample materials and templates that will help save time and make it easy to create written materials. The manual can be used and is available to Family Council leaders nationwide. FRIA is an independent, not for profit advocacy and service organization dedicated to improving long term care in New York State. The cost of the manual is $30.00, including shipping. To order a copy, please email FRIA at fria@fria.org or call (212) 732-5667.
- View additional resources (organizations and printed materials) for information for Family Councils.
Return to Top
Looking for information about Resident Councils? Visit our Resident Council Center.
* Some of the information on this webpage was developed as part of a project funded by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene - Office of Health Care Quality (a five-year project to develop and strengthen family councils in MD). Materials gathered from family councils and citizen advocacy groups are included on this site. You can download the items to use in your family council work. If you would like to share family councils materials with us, and possibly other councils across the country, please send them to jbrill@theconsumervoice.org.
