The importance of looking at the need to support families with a mental illness arose, in part, out of the Gove Inquiry, which identified issues relating to child protection and the relationship of custody and parental mental illness.

In 1998, a small group of people gathered who were interested in the needs of children growing up with parents who had a mental illness. This group of people, the Supporting Families with Parental Mental Illness Provincial Working Group, decided to hold a community forum to talk about parental mental illness and the effect on children. This forum, the first of two, was held at the Vancouver Public Library in September 1998. The group wondered if there were many people interested in this topic and it turned out there were as over 150 people arrived at the library that day, interested and willing to talk. This led to support from the Ministry of Health Services and the Ministry of Children and Family Development and a second forum, this time provincial. Approximately three hundred people from all regions of the Province met at the Roundhouse Community Centre in September 1999. Everyone spent time discussing what worked and what did not work for families where there is parental mental illness. The comments were carefully recorded, grouped by general themes, and later presented to participants as a record of proceedings. This information was used to prepare the first draft of the “Community Best Practice: Self-Assessment Checklist” (Section F).

The aim became the promotion of integrated community planning to support families where there is parental mental illness. To this end, the planning committee developed the vision of a “Best Practices Document” as a guide for any community in the province wanting to consider the needs of these families. It was thought that a community education guidebook, along with steps needed to hold a community workshop, could be published for use by any person or group in the province who wanted to replicate this event.

What is the "Support Families With Parental Mental Illness" Manual?

Download Manual here.

The manual "Supporting Families With Parental Mental Illness" contains all the information needed to hold a successful workshop that will inform audiences as to the issues involved in supporting families with parental mental illness. The manual supports four functions

1. To educate the community in understanding mental illness and its
effects on parenting and child development
2. To assist communities in critically assessing existing services.
3. To bring service providers together in an effort to encourage collaboration in working with families where there is parental mental illness.
4. To help communities answer the question: "What are we as a community doing to support families with parental mental illness?"

This manual is not a guide on interventions that can be used in working with families. Instead it provides an opportunity to see the broader picture, to envision the community where families reside and the services they can possibly access.

The Provincial Working Group gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Ministry for Children and Family Development, and Mental Health and Addictions Policy Division that assisted the group in developing this manual.

We welcome comments and feedback on the manual. We'd also love to hear how your workshop went. Please email Nicole Chovil and I will share your feedback with the Provincial Working Group.

The manual is in PDF format and requires a PDF reader. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader Version 8.0 or the most recent version of another PDF reader, you can download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free here .

 

What is the "Support Families With Parental Mental Illness" Manual?

Download Manual here.