Background Information for Mental Health
Workers
Promoting Well-being and Reducing
Risk
Support for families and
children
Child Protection
Addressing Grief and Loss
Issues
Access to Information, education and
decision-making
The following is a summary of key information for workers in
the Mental Health sector taken from the document, 'Principles
and Actions For Services and People Working with Children of
Parents with a Mental Illness' released in 2004 by the
Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.
Background information relating to the 'Principles and Actions'
document can be accessed
here.
Promoting Well-being and
Reducing Risk
Mental health workers have a key role in:
- the identification of the parental role
and responsibilities of consumers (including
pregnancy) and of parent's strengths and support
needs.
- the identification of safety, health,
developmental, and support needs of children of
parents with a mental illness at the time of
initial contact and periodically thereafter,
particularly at times of key mental health
intervention for the parent.
- supporting consumers who intend to have
children or are pregnant to access early
antenatal care and to prepare for the care and
support of their baby.
- supporting access to advice regarding
family planning for people with a mental illness
who are contemplating having a child or more
children.
- promoting the parent-child relationship
by encouraging positive attachment
experiences.
- notifying child protection services if
they have formed the belief that a child is at
significant risk of neglect or
maltreatment.
- identifying and reducing behaviours
associated with the parent's mental illness,
which may negatively impact upon their child's
health and wellbeing.
- giving due consideration to the
parenting role and responsibilities of consumers
when planning treatment and rehabilitation.
Support for families and
children
Mental health workers can provide support for families
by:
- examining and responding to the needs
of the family as well as of specific
members.
- recognising family needs and advocating
for the provision of ongoing support and
monitoring of family preservation.
- providing information about local
support services and assistance to access these
services if necessary.
- providing consultation assistance to
mainstream parent support agencies to help them
support parents with mental illness throughout
the life span as the demands of the children
change.
- advocating for and providing services
to assist children of parents with a mental
illness to remain well by having access to
factors which increase resiliency.
- advocating for and providing services
and information to assist consumers, carers and
families to build on their strengths and
implement strategies which increase resiliency
and help their children remain well.
- advocating for and providing services
and information to assist young carers of
mentally ill parents to participate in social and
leisure activities, education, training and
employment at rates approaching those of their
peers who do not have caring
responsibilities.
- assisting parents while they are well
to plan with their families for care for the
children and management of related family affairs
should the parents experience a relapse of their
illness and be temporarily unable to care for
their children.
Child Protection
Mental health workers are:
- required to work collaboratively with
other service providers, the nominated child
protection case manager and with the consumer's
family to develop a safety and monitoring plan
for any consumer's child assessed to be at risk
of neglect or maltreatment.
Addressing Grief and Loss
Issues
Mental health workers (in association with other service
providers) can effectively assist family members where a parent
has a mental illness to minimise or address feelings of loss
and grief by:
- working together to implement
prevention and early intervention strategies
aimed at promoting the child-parent relationship
and avoiding child-parent separation.
- supporting the right of the child who
is separated from one or both parents to maintain
personal relations and meaningful contact with
both parents on a regular basis except if it has
been assessed to be contrary to the child's best
interests.
- planning for and assisting in the
reunification of the parent and child/ren
following temporary separation.
- offering and maintaining appropriate
support to both the parent and child in the event
of loss of primary care provision by the parent
to the child/ren.
- offering strategies to promote and
strengthen the child-parent relationship to the
parent even if the child is not in their
care.
- identifying and addressing grief and
loss issues of consumers, their partners or other
family members/personal support people involved
in the care of their children which relate to the
parent's mental illness.
Access to information,
education and decision-making
Mental health workers have a key role in supporting
consumers' children's access to information, education and
decision making processes by:
- exploring consumers' concerns around
issues of confidentiality and discussing the
benefits to children of receiving accurate
age-appropriate information.
- promoting children's access to
age-appropriate information about the parent's
mental illness, whilst maintaining the right of
the consumer to confidentiality.
- encouraging consumers to speak with
their children about their mental health and
illness, and providing resources (e.g. booklets,
videos) and support to assist them.
- supporting parents to discuss early
warning signs of their illness with their older
children and/or other supportive adults to ensure
they know of appropriate actions to take,
especially actions that are protective of very
young children.
- supporting the involvement of children,
where appropriate and with parental consent, in
decision-making processes with their parent/s
regarding the ongoing care of the consumer and
support of the family.
- providing or brokering age-appropriate
debriefing services where necessary for family
members, including children, following a mental
health crisis of a parent.
- providing opportunities for children to
have their questions answered about their own
risk of developing a mental illness and any
concerns they may have about this on their future
lifestyle choices.
- ensuring that young people who have
major caregiving responsibilities for their
parent have access to relevant information about
their parent's treatment and involvement in their
parents' discharge planning if they are
hospitalised.
- promoting the parent's insight into
their illness and its implications for their
family by providing information about diagnosis,
prognosis, management and services.