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AICAFMHA:
promoting mental health for young Australians
Australian Infant, Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health Association Ltd
ABN 87 093 479 022

COPMI Project Update - 03/05/2002

Reference Group Membership Additions

The COPMI Reference group members were listed in my last update. Since that time, Dr. Adrian Falkov, Consultant Child Psychiatrist with the Bedfordshire and Luton Community Trust in the UK (soon to move to Westmead Hospital, New South Wales), and Ms. Alice-Anne Macnaught, Policy and Project Coordinator, Carers Association of Australia, have agreed to join us. We welcome their expertise, experience and enthusiasm for the project.

Resources and tools for families where a parent has a mental illness and for people working with such families– lets hear about them

At the Holding It All Together conference held in Melbourne from April 21st – 24th, COPMI project team members heard about a range of resources that have been developed or are being considered for development by individuals and organizations across Australia. Many resource developers were unaware of similar resources or tools that had been developed in other locations.

To save ‘reinventing wheels’, please list any resources you are developing or have developed relating to children of parents with a mental illness (such as videos, pamphlets and kits) on the AICAFMHA website – go to the Children of Parents with a Mental Illness homepage. Please use the program information section to complete details of the resource/s. It involves completing a fairly simple form, but if you have difficulties with this please contact Sue Garvin (secretary@aicafmha.net.au) and she will assist you to record your details. The project team can then use the resultant list to inform them about resource availability and gaps.

The information collected will be posted and updated on the website so that others wanting to trace resources that may be useful in the programs they run or intend to run can also utilize the list. Please take a few moments to list your resources today – go to http://www.aicafmha.net.au/ .

Consultations

Consultation sessions were held with young people, consumers and carers at the conference regarding the issues they believe the project team should take into account as they develop the good practice principles and guidelines document for services and people working with children of parents with a mental illness around Australia. Further consultation sessions will be held at other conferences and a range of other strategies will be used to gain feedback from the stakeholder groups represented in the COPMI National Consultation Group (see previous update regarding this group).

Aim and Objectives

In response to a request to clarify the aim and objectives of the COPMI initiative, I’ve included them with this update. If readers have questions you’d like me to address in further updates, please let me know.

Elizabeth Fudge
Project Manager,
COPMI Initiative
Ph (08) 8161 6859
Fax (08) 81616983
fudgee@wch.sa.gov.au

Children of Parents with a Mental Illness (COPMI) initiative

Aim

The overall aim of the Children of Parents with a Mental Illness (COPMI) Initiative is to promote better mental health outcomes for children of parents with a mental illness.

Objectives

The objectives are:

Development and uptake of good practice principles and guidelines by services and people working with children of parents with a mental illness around Australia
Availability to children of parents with a mental illness and their families, and to people working with them, of appropriate resource materials in line with the good practice principles and guidelines
Provision of high quality information to the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing to enhance future policy development regarding children of parents with a mental illness and their families.