Recent data indicates that 10–15% of children
in the UK live with a parent who has a mental disorder. Although
many parents with mental illness and their children can be
remarkably resilient, adverse outcomes for children are associated
with parental mental disorder and many of these parents are aware
of the negative impact of their problems on their children and are
fearful of losing custody of them.
This report provides a fully referenced and
practical summary of key issues involving the interactions and
influences between parental psychiatric disorder and child mental
health and wellbeing. The links between poverty, mental ill health,
discrimination and social exclusion are compelling and any attempt
to improve the life chances for patients who are parents and their
children must consider the family context of service users and must
be based on a good understanding of the needs of children and their
mentally ill parents. The report takes the recent evidence base,
demographic changes, changes in policy and services and new
legislation into full account and makes nine recommendations.
The fact that services for children and adults
are usually still delivered separately means that this report will
be of relevance to a wide readership including those in non-mental
health services, those with responsibility for supporting families,
the voluntary sector, service users and all those with service
planning and policy development responsibilities.
This report is an update of, and replaces
CR105: Patients as Parents (2002).
Contents
- Working Group
- Executive summary and recommendations
- Introduction
- Good-enough parenting and the needs of
children
- The experience of parents with mental
illness
- Young carers
- The impact of parental mental disorder on
children
- Child abuse and death
- Fathers with mental illness
- Asylum seekers and refugees
- The role of the professionals in caring about
patients–parents
- What should services and professionals
do?
- Acute services
- Parenting assessment
- Interventions
- Conclusions
- Resources
- References
- Appendix