AICAFMHA:
promoting mental health for young Australians
Australian Infant, Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health Association Ltd
ABN 87 093 479 022
National COPMI Projects
Projects from around Australia, relating to children of parents with a mental illness can be listed here.
To add a project to this list, please send details.
South Australia:
Adult Mental Health Nurses? Beliefs and Practices when Nursing Clients who are Parents of Children
Under 18
While many people who have a mental illness are also capable parents, mental
health problems can affect parent-child interactions in a variety of ways. For
example, parents with depression, when ill, are less able to be affectionate and
responsive (Kowalenko et al.1999), and parents who have schizophrenia may
have unusual or inappropriate affective responses to their child (Pope 1998). In
addition, when a parent is affected by a mental illness, the family is at greater risk
of experiencing relationship discord, discontinuity of care, poor general parenting
skills, social isolation, and poverty and its sequelae, such as poor housing and
lack of transport (Kowalenko et al. 1999). However, many families in which a
parent is affected by mental illness are, or can be supported to parent their
children effectively. These findings were catalysts for this research project.
This collaborative study between Flinders University?s School of Nursing and
Midwifery and the Australian Infant, Child, Adolescent and Family Mental
Health Association (AICAFMHA) used both quantitative and qualitative research
methods to gather information from registered psychiatric/mental health nurses
working in in-patient and community adult mental health settings in South
Australia, about their beliefs and practices in relation to assisting their clients,
who had enduring mental illness, to address parenting roles and family issues. It
also sought to determine the nurses? level of factual knowledge and practices
related to that knowledge with regard to their statutory obligations pertaining to
their clients? children.
View/download brief report (75kb) here...
View/download full report (370kb) here...
Queensland
The Developing Best Practice at the Intersection of Child Protection
and Mental Health Services project is a three-year (2002-2004)
National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funded research project.
The project aims to identify and examine current practices of mental health
workers and child protection workers in cases where there are protection
concerns for children and a parent has either a diagnosed mental illness or
a mental health problem.
View the newsletter.