Abstract: This research undertaken by a nurse working with bereaved families, aimed to explore how grandparents, parents and health/bereavement professionals constructed grandparent bereavement when an infant grandchild died unexpectedly. The 26 participants, living in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, included 16 grandparents and 6 parents from 11 families, in addition to three health/bereavement professionals. A constructivist inquiry informed by writings on nursing, storying and postmodernism was used. Through an exploration of the methodological and ethical issues that arose and were addressed during the study, this work adds to knowledge of how constructivist inquiry can be used in nursing and bereavement research. In addition, the context of this research as a partnership with multiple family members contributes to the ongoing debate about whether participation in bereavement research may be harmful or therapeutic. Conversations in this research formed a series of interviews and letters, which led to the development of a joint construction and each individual's story. A grandchild's death was constructed as a challenge which grandparents faced, responded to and then managed the changes that arose from the challenge. The context of their bereavement was seen as underpinned by their relationship as “parents of the adult parents” of the grandchild who died. This meant that grandparents placed their own pain second to their wish to support and “be with” the parents. Outside the family was where many grandparents found friends, colleagues or their community forgot, or chose not to acknowledge, their bereavement. This work shows how some grandparents help to create a space within the family which maintains a continuing relationship with the grandchild who died.

Abstract: The chapter presents the research findings of the 1992-1993 Wellington Nurse Case Management Scheme Project as a distinct model of nurse case management, which introduced a role and form of practice of a family nurse and a diagram of the service delivery structure required for support and relevant for the New Zealand health system reforms.

Abstract: An analysis of the challenges for the nursing profession of the Government's health reforms. The findings of the 10-month Wellington Nurse Case Management Project 1991-1992, including the description of family nursing practice, what it achieved for health and the service delivery model that would position family nurses in the health reforms were used to provide an exemplar for the nuyrising contribution to health policy for the health reforms. The paper identified a vacum for the reorientating of health care provision to patients/clients and health need and the call to nursesw to take leadership in goving direction to the reorientation.