Collaboration between families and university faculty: a partnership in education

1. Collaboration between nursing faculty and family members of persons with mental illness can help nursing students form a positive view of the family as a resource to treatment and as a source of support for the client. 2. Faculty and family collaboration may result in a program of home visiting, which can augment the psychiatric nursing practicum and increase nursing student empathy and sensitivity to the family burden of mental illness. 3. Nursing students use of CAMI instructional resources has accelerated the incorporation of biological perspectives of mental illness into the nursing curriculum.