Family Support in Community Pediatrics

Written by a pediatrician for pediatric clinicians on the front line in response to the ever increasing obligations they acquire for the well being of children, this book focuses on the potential of health care to impact the social morbidities that affect children's health. Dr. Rushton does not suggest that child health practitioners must do more, but rather they must reorient their efforts in order to achieve optimal outcomes for children. As specialists in child health, pediatric clinicians have skills they can utilize to ensure better outcomes for children, but doing so will require a reorganization of health supervision and the establishment of links with other social services.

Group visits, psychosocial screening, school health, public-private partnerships, home visitation, parent-child centers, and use of auxiliary anticipatory guidance specialists are all tools described in the development of a coordinated, community-based, family-centered approach to pediatric health care supervision. This is a book for private practitioners, community health professionals, academicians who support them, and all those others who want to ensure that our children are nurtured by the child health care system. The crux of this book is to provide a template for thoughtful consideration by the thousands of pediatric providers who care deeply about their profession.

FRANCIS E. RUSHTON, JR.

D. has practiced pediatrics in Beaufort, South Carolina, for the past sixteen years. He is past president of the South Carolina Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and has a continuing interest in the welfare of children. He is currently Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of South Carolina, serves as Chair of the Alliance for South Carolina's Children, and heads a study of the role of health care in supporting families in stress for the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina.