Families won’t just be welcome at Cambridge Children’s Hospital, they will be essential for improving outcomes for children and young people, says family therapist Dr Rachel Watson. This article contains quotes from parents and carers about the importance of supporting the whole family.
Cambridge Children’s Hospital is more than a building. It is an opportunity to embed a way of working that takes relationships seriously as a vital part of care itself.
“Support the families so they can support their child.”
For many families, time in hospital is not a single moment, but part of an ongoing journey. What we can offer, and what we are committed to getting right, is that families feel seen, supported and strengthened through their contact with us. We aim that they leave not only with treatment completed, but with a greater sense of confidence in themselves as a family. We aim that families feel less alone in what they are facing, and even in very difficult circumstances, there remains a sense of shared understanding and possibility.
This is what family-centred care looks like when it is done well. Together with children, young people and their families, it is what we are working to build at Cambridge Children’s Hospital, the first specialist children’s hospital for the East of England.
Seeing beyond the individual
When a child or young person spends time in hospital, their whole family and care network does too. In my work as a family therapist, this is something I see again and again. I rarely meet a child or young person on their own. I meet the network of people around them - parents who may not have slept properly in weeks, siblings trying to make sense of something they don’t fully understand, and often others beyond the bedside quietly holding things together at home. The familiar rhythms of family life, meals, school, work, ordinary conversations, can shift or disappear altogether. Illness does not sit neatly inside one person, it reverberates through everyone who is connected to what is happening.
“Our whole life changed. We were just surviving day to day - everything else fell away.”
At Cambridge Children’s Hospital, we begin from this shared recognition. Our vision - A Whole New Way - asks us to look beyond the individual and to see, understand, and work with the family as a whole. Not as an “extra” to care, but as central to it.
A whole new way of caring for every family
Our holistic approach focuses on the whole child and their whole family, whilst thinking about their community back home, and their future. These are not abstract ideas. They are principles that shape everyday practice from how we hold conversations to how care plans are developed and reviewed.
“When staff really understood our child and our family, everything worked better.”
Central to this is a question that runs through much of my own work: who is this family, and what do they need to cope well and thrive together, now, and over time?
Answering that question requires us to remain curious. It asks us not to assume what “family” looks like, but to understand that each child, young person and family define what they mean by family. Families are made up in many ways, shaped by culture, identity, circumstance and choice, and it is essential that our care is flexible enough to recognise, respect, and celebrate that diversity.
Children and young people will come into hospital at very different points in their journey. Some will arrive in crisis; others will have been living for years with complex or long-term conditions, gradually reshaping their lives around treatment, uncertainty and care.
“You build your whole life around it. You become a carer as well as a parent.”
What unites these experiences is that, by the time families reach us, the impact is already there. Roles may have shifted. Patterns of communication may have changed. Some family members may feel closely involved, while others can feel left at the edges. Parents, carers, siblings. friends, may be holding fears that have not yet been spoken out loud.
We understand these experiences not as separate from the illness, but as part of it. Difficulties emerge in relationships, but so too do possibilities for coping, resilience and change. Families are not simply affected by what happens; they are actively responding to it, often in ways that show remarkable resourcefulness even under strain.
At Cambridge Children's Hospital, this understanding will shape not only how we think, but how we work. The integration of mental and physical healthcare is not simply a structural ambition; it reflects a commitment to seeing the whole system around the child or young person and the relationships, contexts and meanings that influence how care is experienced.
What we know
There is clear evidence, as well as lived experience, that when families are meaningfully involved, outcomes are stronger. Care becomes more joined up, decisions are more sustainable, and families feel better equipped to manage what comes next.
What families bring to care cannot be replicated by any professional system. They hold deep knowledge of the child or young person: their history, their fears, what reassures them, what overwhelms them.
“We know our child best - what helps, what scares them, what makes them feel safe.”
Recognising this shifts the nature of the work. It invites a more collaborative stance, where expertise is shared rather than held in one place. It also requires us to communicate clearly, sensitively and honestly, particularly in moments of uncertainty, and to create space for families to ask questions, reflect, and participate in decisions.
In my experience, it is not only the presence of families that makes a difference, but how they are involved. When families feel heard, respected and understood within the care process, something shifts across the whole system. The child or young person benefits, but so do the parents, carers, siblings, friendship groups, and the family’s wider capacity to cope both during and after time in hospital.
Safe. Trusted. Empowered. Together
Time in hospital can unsettle a family’s sense of itself. For this reason, our approach at Cambridge Children's Hospital will be grounded in principles that feel simple, but are deeply important in practice: safety, trust, choice, collaboration and empowerment. These principles apply not only to the child or young person receiving care, but to everyone connected to them.
“It’s isolating being on the ward with your child. You can go days without leaving the room.”
They also carry an additional responsibility. Not all families experience healthcare in the same way. Some feel able to ask questions or challenge decisions; others may feel less visible or less confident in doing so, particularly where there are differences in culture, language, identity or previous experience of services. Working together means recognising this and actively creating environments where all families feel able to participate, be heard, and shape their care.
This includes being open to feedback, including when it is uncomfortable, and being willing to reflect on our own practice. It is through this ongoing process that care becomes more inclusive, more responsive, and more attuned to the needs of the families we serve.
- Dr Rachel Watson is a family therapist and family therapy lead for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. She works with young people who have been admitted to the Darwin Centre for Young People, and their families and support networks. She also works in the community. Rachel has played an integral role in planning Cambridge Children’s Hospital’s family approach to care.