Strategies for Empowerment

Strategies for Empowerment
Name
Institution Affiliation
Empowerment refers to the enabling of individuals or a group of people to have more control of their lives and make their own decisions and choices. By so doing they are able to help each other raise quality of lives. In the context of healthcare, it refers to the ability of healthcare givers and patients to make decisions and have control in regards to the treatment (Clark, 2015). The public health nurse in a community helps to advocate in several capacities in their duties of ensuring quality healthcare to the entire population. The paper will be looking at strategies that the health nurse will work on to foster empowerment in the community.
One key factor to empowering communities in marginalized areas is developing increased skills that will reduce dependency and enable them to have better control of their lives. This could include management, organizational and technical skills (Clark, 2015). The more the skills, the better empowered the community is. The presence of effective leadership that works in accordance with the values of the whole community is also another strategy the health nurse can pursue. Good leaders make a strong community. Instilling confidence and the idea that the people in the community are able to achieve whatever they set out to do is another way of strengthening the community. It will go about creating positive attitudes and self-motivate the residents to more independent and make their own choices and decisions.

In addition, better access to communal services like hospitals, roads, water points helps in empowerment attempts (Bartle, 2012). The health nurse could for one ensure that the services he/she provides are accessible to all members of the community. Furthermore, a community that can co-exist without aspects such as racism and bigotry can pull strength in numbers. Other strategies that the nurse can look at include ensuring better communication, instilling a sense of trust and unity and engaging the members of the community in participating in all levels of decision making.
References
Bartle, P. (2012). Elements of Community Empowerment. Cec.vcn.bc.ca. Retrieved 20 February 2018, from http://cec.vcn.bc.ca/cmp/modules/mea-ele.htmClark, M. (2015). Population and community health nursing (6th ed.). New York: Julie Alexander.