Socially Oriented Approaches To Working with Children of Parents with Severe and Enduring Mental Illness: Expert Perspectives

TL;DR

This study explores how social networks affect children of parents with severe mental illness and offers insights into supporting these families.

Contribution

The paper introduces expert perspectives on leveraging social networks to improve outcomes for children of parents with mental illness.

Findings

Common issues in family networks include caring roles, structural limitations, and stigma.

Intervention opportunities involve early identification and community integration.

Barriers include communication gaps and staff workload, while facilitators include training and collaboration.

Abstract

Children Of Parents with severe and enduring Mental Illness (COPMI) face an elevated risk for inherited mental health issues and diminished quality of life across various domains. While social factors such as social networks (the set of active, valued social ties surrounding an individual) are recognised as protective, they are often inadequately conceptualised, preventing effective leverage to promote positive outcomes. This brief report provides information regarding common network related issues faced by families, opportunities for supportive intervention, barriers and facilitators to social network conscious work with COPMI according to professionals. Professionals who work with individuals or families affected by parental mental illness provided insights as to how social network considerations can or do feature in their work via focus group discussions. Focus group transcripts were analysed through an a priori framework developed through framework analysis in order to identify common issues, potential interventions, and barriers and facilitators in their work. Commonly observed issues within family networks included the impact of caring roles, structural limitations to networks, and experiences related to stigma and trust. Network related intervention opportunities included early identification, support for community integration efforts, and child skills building. Barriers included lack of needs identification, communication gaps, and staff workload pressures. Potential facilitators include ongoing training, interdisciplinary collaboration, and consistency in staff/family relationships. This brief report offers valuable insights for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers emphasising the utility of relational approaches when working with families affected by parental mental illness.