WA, Perth Metropolitan Area - Family to Family Partnership

Contact Names: Carol Clark

Organisation: Ruah Community Services, Wanslea Family Services, ARAFMI, COMIC WA

Street Address: 27 Cleaver Street - (Map)

Suburb: West Perth

State: WA

Postcode: 6005

Country: Australia

Telephone: (08) 9208 0505

Fax: (08) 9443 9015

Program Activity:

Family to Family Workshop series - 6 sessions for the whole family where a parent experiences a mental illness.

This partnership arises from the family members themselves saying ""what we really needed was a place where the whole family could learn and share together about mental illness and how it affects each of us"".

The primary aims of the F2F project are:

to increase resilience of children and families living with parental mental illness;
to empower and equip families to take an active role in addressing the impact of parental mental illness on their children and on the family system; and
to improve quality of family life and support the recovery journey.

The secondary aims of the F2F project are:

to strengthen local collaborative networks of agencies, workers and families;
to develop peer leadership capacity amongst people living with parental mental illness (including parents with illness, partners/carers and families);
to provide an opportunity for workers and peer facilitators to gain skills and confidence in working with COPMI families; and
to develop a model for whole-of-family COPMI workshops that can be replicated elsewhere.

The workshops provide a space for families to share, learn, reflect and plan.

Evaluation:

The project evaluation includes quantitative and qualitative pre and post test measures to capture dimensions of mental health knowledge, self esteem, family functioning and strengths and difficulties.

Feedback from participants and facilitators for each session and an action research framework is incorporated to capture the experiences and reflections of the design group, facilitators and the partnership management through the life of the project.

Evidence:

Evidence or rationale for the project arises from the experiences of families themselves and their belief about the opportunities that will make a difference, confirmed by the practice experience of the partnering agencies.

Materials and content of the sessions are research based information adapted for this specific purpose.

Other:

Two of a series of three have been trialled with promising results.

Analysis of the available data in currently underway.

Feedback from family members tell us the experience has been highly valued with positive outcomes.

Map: