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Supporting Families with Parental Mental IllnessNotes from April 15, 2009BC Children’s Hospital Reproductive Mental Health
James Wale, CW Consultant, MCFD Provincial Office
Information Sharing
Provincial - Debi spoke about the development of the 10 yr Mental Health Plan – led now by the Ministry of Health Living and Sport Started consultations with community members. Debi represented MCFD at Consultations in Feb 2009. There were opportunities to provide feedback online. Debi raised the issue about PMI and there was support in the audience for it. At this point it isn’t known what has come of the consultations. They have yet to consult with youth. This will be done after the election. (Kamloops, the Island, and Lower Mainland)
Keli noted that the Minister of Health, George Abbott consulted with the BC Alliance and there is now a “Community Action Committee”. Again, more to follow after the election. Maybe a call out for projects. Keli – MH Commission of Canada - the National Strategy Document has not been well received, huge gaps.. this feedback has been sent from many quarters. Evergreen Framework – a document specific to child and youth mental health. Keli is working to have “family mental health” involved. Keli has Dr. Reebye on the national advisory. There is an article on CYMH in Today’s Parent coming up for publication. Will be conducting a survey of parents. A call to action in that magazine.
Fraser – Protocols Development. Rob is working with committees from both organizations, Health and MCFD. The focus is on finding places were the organizations can agree without resource (money) implications. There are seven point in the proposed plan, the first of which is to insure that clinicians or social workers ask questions to determine if there is parental mental illness and if so, how the children are helped to understand this, to make referrals to appropriate community agencies, to track data on prevalence and finally make PMI and COPMI priorities in their prevention activities. Bee Lee Vancouver Lisa Clarke’s contract ( 1 yr) has been completed . Developing a protocol and are at a final draft. Getting feedback and hoping for sign off quickly The process has been creating better dialogue, including relevant parts of the legislation (ACT)s . The draft will encourage information sharing, collaboration, working together while respecting privacy. Ranni noted that the committee in Mission shared these materials. Their group included the hospital. Had a potlatch. Lisa provided training for “champions” and a “Best Practice Guide” to be published on the website, www.parentalmentalillness.org
Keli spoke about May 7th - Dr. Beardslee – and CYMH Day 2007 advocated to have CYMH day declared…. thought it was annualized but has to be re-instituted every year. It will be declared again. Bonnie Leadbeater, U. Vic, Child and Youth Health Research Network – agreed to fund Dr. Beardslee here. Will do grand rounds at BCCH and will present and then do a roundtable and a framework for Parental Mental Health. At SFU Downtown. The Federation of Families in the US is celebrating the same day as CYMH day. Rob to send something to Roxanne Still about the roundtable. (done0 Ranni brought up the differential job loss and how that affects family stress. Need to be mindful of how the economic down turn effects families. People’s functioning levels become diminished. Pam Whiting- and PHSA Will attend the May 7th event. Workforce Study – Nicole Based on a small grant from the Child and Youth Health Research Network the study is looking at workforce attitudes and practices. Using the same survey that Dr. Maybery is using in Australia. Started collecting data in January. Almost finished data collection. Goal is 75 from adult mental health, CYMH and CW. In total, 225 in the sample. Thus far 200 have been returned Investigators Nicole, Rob, Grant Charles (UBC), David Brown (PHSA – Scientist), Andy Libbiter GEMS – Gateways to Evidence that Matters … These are short one page (double sided) info sheets on research topics related to COPMI and published on the Australian COPMI website. Rob & Nicole have been asked to develop one on community development approaches to COPMI because of our work on the manual “Supporting Families with Parental Mental Illness. Rob has sent an appeal through the Australian network for information about what others have done and received good response from Western Australia and Brisbane. People in Australia have been using the BC Manual. Nicole and Rob are working on the issue of what the key messages will be. Research in this area is quite grey but we expect assistance from Grant Charles who teaches a course in Community Development at UBC
Ulysses Agreement Study Neil Mercer is conducted a study of “what helps and hinders” in the development of Ulysses Agreements. He has completed five parent interviews and five professionals interviews and one family member. Neil hopes to present his research in Australia at the First International COPMI conference in the end of October.
Doris just finished a document for aboriginal women who have recently given birth. This goes with the DVD developed in Fraser. It weaves in Aboriginal beliefs with Western beliefs. The launch will soon be announced. There may be a workshop for health care providers focusing on perinatal depression. There is a section for fathers. Website- Michael posed the question; How user friendly is the website? Roxanne- have to scroll a great deal in order to access information. Can you click on resources, for example “tip sheets” so a new page pops up. Michael to look for remedies. There have been 12000 visits to the site with most coming from Canada, US, Australia and Germany. Dr. Reeybe – Clinical Parenting Capacity Model for Mothers Affected by Mental Illness. Dr. Reebye is doing a workshop onMay 13th at BCCH.
COPMI (Australia) International Advisory Group Rob is on an international committee that provides input to the Australian National COPMI initiative. The Australians are seeking their fourth phase multi year stage of funding for their COPMI National Initiative. The committee, that has members from the UK, Netherlands, Boston, Rob and from around Australia, meets a couple of times a year via conference phone (it is quite a feat, because usually someone is calling in around 6 am and for someone else it is midnight). The group has been advising on the International COPMI Conference for October 2009 and recently has been talking about a position paper on COPMI and efforts to have something of this nature accepted by the World Health Organization (WHO). The European members of the committee are academics with links to these venues, so this is their hope.
Notes by: Dr. Robert Lees
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