RELATED RESOURCES
FINAL DISSERTATION SURVEY TEMPLATE
Family quality of life consists of five elements and occurs when three conditions exist. The elements are the interactions among family members, parenting, emotional well-being, physical and material well-being, and disability related support. The three conditions are satisfaction of families’ needs, enjoyable times together, and ability to do what a family values. Another important part of family quality of life is meaningful integration in the community, so that everyone in the family can live, work, play, and have friends in the community.
Family quality of life depends on three circumstances: the core concepts of disability policy and the policies that reflect them, the supports and services that families receive or do not receive, and the partnerships that families have or do not have with professionals.
Family quality of life also depends on the ability of the family to have the time and emotional support to appreciate how people with disabilities make positive contributions to their families and communities.
Here we describe our research related to family quality of life and the components that are part of quality of life, including fostering the ability of families to have meaningful integration in the community and encouraging positive perceptions about disability.
Family quality of life is the ultimate goal of public policy affecting families who have members with disabilities (indeed, all families). Our work includes
- Researching what families, service providers, and administrators think is important in family life
- Measuring family quality of life
- Studying how partnerships affect family quality of life
- Identifying what predicts and contributes to family quality of life
- Providing practical information for families and researchers related to enhancing family quality of life
- Providing research and information related to supporting families of children with disabilities
The Beach Center Family Community Integration Survey (hereafter referred to as the FCI Survey) assesses families' perceptions about: (a) the degree to which they are able to participate in various community activities to the extent they want to, and (b) the barriers they experience in participating in their communities. The focus of the FCI Survey is on families of children with disabilities ages birth through 21. We are currently studying the application of this survey to families of young children without disabilities.
The Beach Center Family Quality of Life Conversation Guide (hereafter called the FQOL Conversation Guide) is based on the Beach Center Family Quality of Life Scale. Its purpose is to provide a structured conversation for families and professionals to consider needs for support to enhance a family's quality of life.
The Beach Center Family Quality of Life Scale (hereafter referred to as FQOL Scale) assesses families' perceptions of their satisfaction with different aspects of family quality of life. The focus of our original development of the FQOL Scale was on families of children with disabilities ages birth through 21. We are currently studying its application to families of children without disabilities and families of adults with disabilities.
The Beach Center's Kansas Inventory of Parental Perceptions (KIPP) assesses families' cognitive perceptions about their child with a disability and their family. It is based on research about cognitive coping strategies used by people to deal successfully with events most people consider stressful.
The Psychological Empowerment Scale (PES) is a 32-item scale based on Zimmerman’s (1995) theory of psychological empowerment. It is designed to assess levels of empowerment in groups of parents of children with disabilities. The PES consists of four subscales: 1) attitudes of control and competence, 2) critical skills and knowledge, 3) formal participatory behaviors, and 4) informal participatory behaviors. Each subscale has eight items.