amilies face many challenges when a child hasa chronic illness such as childhood cancer. The chal-lenges may include physiological changes in the childdue to treatment, interruption in the child’s develop-mental progress, alterations of the family’s day-to-dayactivities, and revisions in future goals. In the mid1980s, Knafl and Deatrick launched a program ofstudy to understand ways in which families respond tosuch challenges when a child has a chronic illness.This research has led to the description of 5 patternsof response to chronic illness, or 5 family managementstyles (FMS): Thriving, Accommodating, Enduring,Struggling, and Floundering (Knafl, Breitmayer,Gallo, & Zoeller, 1996). More recently, Deatrick andcolleagues have been applying the FMS Framework inwork with families who have a child with cancer tobetter understand their experience and to tailor inter-ventions for the family during the child’s cancer illnesstrajectory.The preconference workshop at the 26th AnnualConference of the Association of Pediatric OncologyNursing, held in 2002, focused on the developmentand application of FMS to families of children withcancer. After the workshop, the presenters reviewedthe concepts and developed summary consensusstatements. The consensus statements are as follows:1. Childhood cancer is represented by differenttypes of illness situations and disease manage-ment strategies.2. Health care professionals follow specific treat-ment protocols and tend to expect the child andfamily to react similarly to the informationpresented to them.3. A one-size-fits-all approach, however, is inade-quate, given that different families have differentneeds.4. Variationinfamilyresponsetochildhoodcancerresults from differences in how families and insome cases family members define and managethe illness situation.5. It is important to identify each individualfamily member’s needs and how these differentneeds contribute to the total family’s responseto the child’s cancer diagnosis and treatmentplans.Downloaded from jpo.sagepub.com