Addressing long-standing health inequalities in Wales

Family resilience is key to supporting pre-school children’s health and development.

Welsh Government policies addressed long-term health inequality, but some families were overlooked.  In 2014, University of South Wales (USW) researchers developed an evidence-based assessment tool for health visitors to identify those families.   

The Family Resilience Assessment Instrument and Tool (FRAIT) was incorporated into Welsh Government (2016) ‘Healthy Child Wales Programme’ and mandated October 2017.  FRAIT is used by every Health Visitor in Wales (n=1086), with every family on their caseload (min. 250 families) on 7 occasions, i.e. over 1.8 million family contacts. Families benefit from an evidence-based Health Visitor assessment leading to targeted and  timely interventions. 

FRAIT is now being considered for use in post-pandemic India where there is currently no standard tool for community nurses to assess resilience in families. This research has the potential to positively impact the lives of 158 million children in India under the age of six.