Development and utilization of Family Empowerment Scale
The concept of empowerment has been used in the field of health and sociology since the 1980s in the UThe concept of empowerment has been used in the field of health and sociology since the 1980s in the United States and in the 1990s in the United Kingdom 1) 2). Family empowerment is the ability of the family to control their lives and promote the care of children with disabilities in collaboration with others 3). Koren (1992) presented a conceptual framework (“Empowerment of family relationships” “Empowerment of relationships with service systems” “Empowerment of relationships with communities”) for empowerment of families raising children with disabilities in the community. We have developed the Family Empowerment Scale (FES) to measure this 4). FES consists of 34 items in 3 areas of family / service system / community, and is a scale whose high reliability and validity have been verified, and is used in studies all over the world 5). Rie Wakimizu et al. developed the Japanese version of FES (J-FES) with the consent of Koren6). We have carried out a survey on the actual situation of empowerment of families raising children with disabilities7) and development and verification of a family empowerment model that will be a clue to promote empowerment of the family in Japan 8). Anyone can use J-FES. Please use all means.
1) Oda K, Sugimoto T, Hisada N. Empowerment. Chuohoki Publishing.1999(In Japanese).
2) Ogawa Y. Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities-Welfare for Persons with Disabilities in the United Kingdom 167-168, Tokyo: Akashi Publishing, 1998(In Japanese).
3) Segal SP, et al. Measuring empowerment in client-run self-help agencies. Community Mental Health Journal, 31, 215-27, 1995.
4) Koren PE, DeChillo N, & Friesen BJ. Measuring empowerment in families whose children have emotional disabilities: A brief questionnaire. Rehabilitation Psychology, 37, 305-321,1992.
5) Herbert RJ, Gagnon AJ, Rennick JE, & O’Loughlin JL. A systematic review of questionnaires measuring health-related empowerment. Research and theory for nursing practice, 23, 107-132, 2009.
6) Wakimizu R, Fujioka H, Furuya K, Miyamoto S, Iejima A, Yoneyama A. Development of the Japanese version of Family Empowerment Scale (J-FES). Journal of Health and Welfare Statistics. 11, 33-41, 2010(In Japanese).
7) Wakimizu R，Fujioka H，Nishigaki K，Matsuzawa A, Iwata N，Kishino M， Yamaguchi K，Sasaki M. Construction of Empirical Model Focused on the Family Empowerment Nurturing the Child with Severe Motor and Intellectual Disabilities at Home in Japan. The journal of child health, 77(5), pp.423-432. 2018(In Japanese).
8) Wakimizu R， et al. An
Empirical Model of Family Empowerment for Home-Based Severely Disabled Children. Child Health Research, 77(5), pp. 423-432. 2018.