Children whose parents have mental illnesses are among the most vulnerable in our communities. There is however, much that can be done to prevent or mitigate the impact of a parent’s illness on children. Notwithstanding the availability of several evidence‐based interventions, efforts to support these children have been limited by a lack of adequate support structures. Major service reorientation is required to better meet the needs of these children and their families. This editorial provides recommendations for practice, organisational, and systems change.

No abstract

A B S T R AC TParental mental illness (PMI) can negatively affect the lives of all family members, and there is acknowledged need to work with family and social contexts to promote recovery. However, programmes undertaking such work remain rare and knowledge concerning mechanisms through which PMI impacts families and through which recovery might be achieved is underdeveloped. This paper outlines a new family intervention programme and presents evidence from focus groups with 16 professionals into their experiences of work with families with PMI. Evidence suggests that interactional effects of PMI, family communication and family relationships are key to understanding its impacts, but professionals are liable to struggle to engage with these due to concerns over stigma, lack of skills and low confidence. Positive impacts on practice were achieved through raising awareness of the whole-family context in relation to PMI, building confidence to raise and engage with PMI and the provision of structured tools for use with families. Positive impacts on the lives of family members were then achieved by professionals in relation to symptoms for the ill parent, the burden on children and overall family well-being, strongly mediated through improved family communication, understanding and relationships. Implications for policy and practice are considered.

Parental mental illness (PMI) is a public health issue associated with risks of negative outcomes for children and families. Effective whole family interventions with families with PMI are still not well implemented across mental health, social work and multi-agency workforces. This paper presents research with professionals trained in a new programme, the Think Family-Whole Family Programme, to strengthen family-focused work around PMI. It examines professionals' practice and understanding of PMI and identifies enablers of effective practice. Findings indicate that participants identify having appropriate knowledge of how PMI can affect families and the confidence to address it as important factors enabling effective work with them. They also had concerns around how to discuss mental health due to issues of stigma and management support of whole-family work. Results indicate potential for training to achieve positive outcomes in improving professionals' knowledge and confidence and encouraging whole-family work around PMI. Possibilities and challenges for future work with families with PMI are discussed.