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About us - English version

About this website – the Familiy Net

Familienettet.no is a website for all families who have children with physical or mental disabilities or suffer chronic illness, offering helpful information and advice for parents and caregivers.

The primary aims of familienettet.no is to make it easier to find useful information and to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experience between people in similar situations from all around the country.

The creation of Familienettet.no is the result of collaboration between individual users, representatives from FFO and SAFO, The Family Project / National Center for Learning and Mastering, Directorate of Social Development and Health, as well as other family professionals with diverse backgrounds and expertise. The Directorate of Children, Youth and Family Affairs administers the website.

Equality

Familienettet.no is based on a viewpoint that all people are equal and that all human experience and knowledge are of equal importance. The website’s content uses words, phrases and concepts to illustrate this basic understanding of equality. In the experiences and stories that have been communicated to us, told by the users themselves, we present the stories pretty much as they were told to us.

You know your family best

Familienettet.no is based on the belief that parents and others who are close to the child, do what they think is best for their child in any given situation. Perceptions of right or wrong, easy or difficult, vary from person to person, making sharing experiences between parents a valuable source of insight and support. The website’s content seeks to highlight these contrasts between individuals to help parents see new possibilities for dealing with different situations.

Vision and values

Familienettet.no is founded on the following vision: On board with the family to help with better coping for everyday life. Mastery and coping are achieved through people's participation, focusing on their own resources and abilities.

As a guideline for the establishment and development of familienettet.no, we place great emphasis on our values: equal, reliable, positive and up to date.

Familienettet.no bases its activity on user participation and equal interaction between users and professionals. This focus ensures that the site has content that fundamentally differs from sources supplied by professionals alone.
Both the content and links have a certain lifespan. Procedures for updating ensure out-of-date information is replaced.
All information on the site is trustworthy. This means that the information will be honest and purely descriptive of peoples’ experiences.
The information will be characterized by having a positive approach. All information is solution-oriented and seeks to assist families in their everyday lives. The experiences shared will not deny experiencing difficulties, but will focus on how difficulties have been dealt with successfully.

To cope with life

The ability to develop and make use of our own resources is a key factor in personal development and helps to build mental health. Mastering is about coping successfully with everyday life.

Coping is seen largely as the experience of having the strength and knowledge to meet the challenges and sense of control over one’s own life. To strengthen a person's mastery of the situation he or she lives in, helps both patients and their families to adapt to reality. It puts the person in a position to tell the difference between what must be accepted, and what the person themselves can help to change.

Coping is to maintain control

To facilitate learning and mastery, information must be based on the patient or the relatives' own experiences. Familienettet.no believes that mastering depends on several aspects of control:

Cognitive control: Providing useful information can bring an individual a feeling of control and decision making. For instance, enough knowledge to be able to increase or decrease medication..

Instrumental control: Provides a sense of competence rather than helplessness. For instance knowing how to inject insulin properly.

Emotional control: Experiencing emotional support that provides a sense of belonging and shared experience to combat feelings of isolation and loss. For instance, realizing the importance of contact with friends.