The economic status of parents with serious mental illness in the United States.

Accessible summary What is known on the subject? The combination of coping with their mental health problems and caring for children makes parents vulnerable. Family‐centred practice can help to maintain and strengthen important family relationships, and to identify and enhance the strengths of a parent with a mental illness, all contributing to the recovery of the person with the mental illness. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge? Taking the strength and the opportunities formulated by parents themselves as a starting point is fairly new. Parents with severe mental illness find strength for parenting in several ways. They feel responsible, and this helps them to stay alert while parenting, whereas parenthood also offers a basis for social participation through school contacts and the child's friendships. Dedication to the parent role provides a focus; parents develop strengths and skills as they find a balance between attending to their own lives and caring for their children; and parenting prompts them to find adequate sources of social support. In this study these strategies were found to be the fundamentals of recovery related to parenting. What are the implications for practice? Nurses can support and coach patients who are identified as parents, and self‐chosen parenting related goals are set and addressed. A family‐focused approach by nurses can be used to prevent problems for children and their families, identify their strengths as well as vulnerabilities, and address the challenges to build resilience. Abstract IntroductionUnderstanding of the problems of parents with mental illness is growing. Gaining insight into strategies for parenting, while taking the opportunities formulated by these parents themselves as a starting point is fairly new. QuestionWhat are the strategies of parents with a mental illness to be successful? MethodExperiences of 19 mothers and eight fathers with a mental illness were explored with in‐depth interviews. Data were content analysed, using qualitative methods. ResultsNext to feelings of inadequacy, interviewees also describe how children enrich and structure their lives and are not only a burden but serve as distraction from problems. Developing activities that interest both child and parent provides avenues for emerging strength. Mental illness constrains fathers, but also gives opportunities to develop a meaningful relation with their children. DiscussionStrategies like being fully dedicated to the parental role, finding a balance between attention for one's own life and parenting and finding adequate sources of support are found to be fundamental for recovery in the parent role. Implications for practicePeer groups can be of valuable help and mental health workers can support parents to set self‐chosen parenting related goals.

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“…), whereas only one of four men with severe mental illness is actually parenting (Luciano et al . ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Strategies for parenting by mothers and fathers with a mental illness

Ende

Busschbach

Nicholson

et al. 2016

Psychiatric Ment Health Nurs

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“…Internationally, rates of maternal mental illness range anywhere from 7.5% in Australia (Buist et al, ) to 38% in the USA (Luciano, Nicholson, & Meara, ). Abel et al () found that Northern Ireland (NI) had the highest levels of maternal mental illness in the UK; with one in four children, aged 0–16 years, exposed to maternal mental illness and 53% of children over 16 having a mother who has been diagnosed with a common (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictors of family focused practice among health visitors: A mixed methods study

Leonard

Linden

2020

Journal of Advanced Nursing

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Aims To determine what predicts health visitors’ family‐focused practice with mothers who have mental illness. To explore health visitors’ experiences of family‐focused practice and what factors, if any, enable and/or hinder it. Design A sequential mixed‐methods design was employed. Methods In Phase 1, a total of 230 health visitors, in five Health and Social Care Trusts in the UK were recruited using convenience sampling and completed the Family Focused Mental Health Practice Questionnaire. Three multiple regression models were developed to test whether workload (Model I), professional knowledge (Model II) and health visitors’ professional and personal experience (Model III) predicted their family‐focused practice. In Phase 2, 10 health visitors, who completed the questionnaire, participated in semi‐structured interviews to describe their experiences of family‐focused practice. The data collection of the two phases was conducted from September 2017 ‐ September 2018. Results Model III was significant. While personal experience of parenting was positively associated with family‐focused practice, length registered as a health visitor and personal experience of mental illness was negatively associated. Qualitative findings suggested that increasing years of professional experience and personal experience of mental illness enabled health visitors to support mothers and their children, but not other adult family members, including partners. Limited skills and knowledge to support mothers with severe mental illness (i.e. schizophrenia) hindered family‐focused practice. Conclusion This study advances understanding of how health visitors’ professional and personal experiences can influence their family‐focused practice and highlights the importance of organizations promoting their capacity to support mothers with severe mental illness and to include mothers’ partners. Impact A clear understanding of factors affecting health visitors’ capacity to engage in family‐focused practice will help to inform policy, education and practice in health visiting; with potential to improve outcomes for the whole family.

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“…These latter factors are known contributors to parenting problems in the general population, for which there are already some welldeveloped evidence-based interventions. Luciano et al (2014) found that parents with a SMI, compared to parents without a SMI, were less economically stable and more likely to fall below the poverty line [5]. Poverty and unemployment are two major issues associated with child welfare involvement and both generate additional risks such as housing instability, inaccessible healthcare, and community violence [6].…”

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confidence: 99%