Mental Health Workers - Key Questions to Ask Parents/Carers/Partners

Firstly, it's important to stress that parental mental illness may not adversely affect the children and many people with a mental illness do an excellent job of parenting. However, there are four key areas to consider in supporting a parent with a mental illness and their offspring:

Identification of risk factors (for parent and child)

Protection from harm for the child

Care of the family (parent/s, child/ren and others)

Information (for the child/ren and their care-givers)

Identification - Assessment Considerations

Does the person have responsibilities or contact with dependant children?

Ask the age of any children the person has care-giving responsibilities for or contact with. Specific age related information.

Is the person pregnant or planning to conceive?

Ascertain any support needs and strengths the person may have in fulfilling their parenting role. Does the parent/family have support needs regarding the provision of basic necessities for their child/ren - safety, food, clothing, warmth, emotional support, stimulation, social support, development and education opportunities (includes attendance at school and early childhood facilities).

If the person with the mental illness is separated from their child/ren, explore possible grief and loss issues and refer for counselling as appropriate.

Protection

If you have concerns about the safety and well-being of a child/young person as a result of the parental mental health problem and/or of any medication, hospitalisation or treatment approach to be taken with the parent contact your local child protection service.

Prevention & Care

Work with family members, community service providers (and child protection agencies as required) to support families to improve their capacity to support, protect and care for their child/ren if required. This may include:

• Domestic support (eg Phone Commonwealth Carelink Centre for information about local services 1800 052222)
• Childcare or respite support (Child Care Access Hotline - Phone 1800 670305)
• Support in seeking appropriate housing
• Parental support groups
• Programmes to assist parents to develop skills
• Counselling to support the partnership of parents
• Transport assistance
• Referral to a social worker to assist in accessing financial support if necessary to enable care and protection of the child (e.g. for childcare)
• Referring the partner/support person to a carer's support service (Commonwealth Carer Resource Centre Phone: 1800 242636).

Affirm the parenting strengths of the person and be aware of their limits. Reassure them if necessary that parenting is a challenge for all parents. Acknowledge that many of the issues of parents with mental illness are generic to all parents and others are specific to the situation of living with mental illness.

Do they have a care plan in place for their child/ren should they become unwell or require hospitalisation?

Encourage the parent/s to plan whilst the parent is well for continuity of care for the child (including continuity of schooling) if/when the parent experiences a relapse of their illness and/or requires hospitalisation or separation from their child due to other reasons. (An example child's Care Plan can be found on the COMIC website: http://www.howstat.com/comic. An example Care Plan for a baby can be downloaded from this site.) A Western Australian version of this package is available from the WA Office of Mental Health website, Resources section http://www.mental. health.wa.gov.au/one/aboutus_resources.asp

 

Information

Do they wish to discuss the any ramifications of their illness and or treatment on their ability to fulfill their parenting role?

Assist parents to access information about the possible implications of their mental illness, treatment and/or co-morbid factors (e.g. substance abuse) on their parenting.

Do they have enough information about their mental illness and its implications to share with family members if they wish to?

Encourage the parent or caregiver to discuss the mental illness and it's affect on the parent with the child (at a level they can understand).

Encourage the family to seek further information through local mental health services, non-government agencies, mental health support organisations or the SANE website http://www.sane. org/.

A pamphlet called 'Family Talk' has been developed for families in which a parent of dependent children has a mental illness. Also available is a list of books suitable for children of different ages which may be used to assist children in the understanding of their parent's mental illness.