Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)

The key elements of family-centered care are:

• Recognizing that the family is the constant in the child's life
• Facilitating family/professional collaboration at all levels of service delivery
• Honoring the racial, ethnic, cultural, spiritual, and socioeconomic diversity of families
• Recognizing family strengths and respecting different ways of coping
• Encouraging family-to-family support
• Sharing with families, on a continuing and supportive basis, complete and unbiased information
• Understanding and incorporating the developmental needs of infants, children and adolescents into the delivery system
• Implementing policies and programs that provide emotional and financial support
• Designing accessible service systems that are flexible, culturally competent and responsive to family-identified needs