Resources for community mental health workers

Enhance your skills and ability to respond to parents and families

eLearning courses

• 'Keeping families and children in mind' – An introductory course for mental health and allied health professionals. It supports learners to understand the impact of parental mental illness on the entire family and to recognise the benefits of a family-sensitive approach to working with parents experiencing mental illness.
  
• 'Supporting infants and toddlers of parents with mental illness' - For adult mental health professionals working with parents of young children where the parent has a mental illness.
• 'Let's talk about children' - A brief, evidence-based method designed to assist mental health professionals and parents who experience mental illness to have a structured discussion about parenting and their child's needs.
• 'Family Focus' – An evidence-based, time-limited family intervention that aims to strengthen family communication, problem-solving and resilience.
• 'Child Aware practice' - Covers a range of activities designed to ensure that children of parents with mental illness get appropriate support from services that are working with parents and carers.
• 'Child Aware supervision' – For supervisors of front-line staff in adult-focused health and social services, to support staff to develop 'Child Aware' practice.

Other resources

• 'Helping teenagers find the support they need' pages
• Community mental health service family-friendly checklist
• Browse free COPMI materials (including translated texts) – Delivery is free within Australia
• The COPMI resource collection – Comprehensive resources on COPMI-related topics
• See Gateway to Evidence that Matters (GEMS) research summaries of recent Australian and international research related to children (aged 0-18 years) of parents with a mental illness, their parents and families