Parental Mental Health and Child Welfare Network

March 2008 Newsletter

Good News for Network

SPN's first year managing the network is ending on a high note with the award of a grant from the Department of Children, Schools and Families (details below) and a full house at the study day 'Beyond the Smile' in Manchester on 18th March with over 100 places booked. We'll be reporting on the study day in the next newsletter and will be producing a full conference report so watch this space.

Celebrating now, creating brighter futures

We are delighted to announce that the Department of Schools, Children and Families has awarded the Parental Mental Health and Child Welfare Network £30,000 a year for the next three years in order to support and develop the crucial work of the Network in supporting practice that strengthens family relationships.

One of the aims will be to develop regional networks which will have a role in disseminating good practice and the forthcoming SCIE/NICE guidelines.

These networks will also assist in the delivery of the Government's Family at Risk strategy, in relation to parental mental health. This indicated that around 450,000 parents have mental health problems. Poor parental mental health is significantly associated with children's own mental health and their social and emotional development. For example, the children of parents with mental ill-health are twice as likely to experience a childhood psychiatric disorder. Using the guidelines, the networks will develop practice to strengthen family relationships and support systems to mitigate the impact on children's distress. The delivery of practice development will be through study days, training and web based information (with follow up publications for wide dissemination).

Parental substance misuse and children

The Safeguarding study day flagged up parental substance misuse as a key factor in Serious Case Reviews studied along with domestic violence and parental mental health issues.

The Home Office's 10 year drug strategy is persuasive on the issues for children in drug using households. It says "Children of parents who have problems with substance misuse can suffer from specific harms, which may include:

• intergenerational transmissions of harms where substance misusers increase the risk that their children will experience poor lifetime outcomes or develop substance misuse problems themselves;
• abuse or neglect, behavioual problems and long-term developmental problems;
• exposure to health harms associated with substance-misusing parents, such as accidental overdose;
• separation from parents, including removal to social care which is estimated in recent research to occur in around 60 per cent of cases;
• an increased risk of eviction or housing in temporary or unsuitable accommodation;
• responsibility for caring for a parent with substance misuse problems, which has been shown to lead to a higher incidence of educational difficulties; and
• a greater risk of experiencing domestic violence or foetal alcohol syndrome where a parent is a problematic drinker"

The policy response is earlier intervention and a sharper focus on prevention with an emphasis on family support. Family-friendly drug treatment is promised as part of a package of interventions providing intensive and integrated support for families at risk, to improve parenting skills, reduce risk factors for children, support families to stay together and break the cycle of problems being transferred between generations, drawing on learning from innovative programmes, (including Family Intervention Projects, Family Drug and Alcohol Courts and Family Pathfinders); supporting kin carers, such as grandparents, who take on care responsibilities for the children of substance-misusing parents, with improved information and support; and prioritising the protection of children of substance-misusing parents through early identification and improved information-sharing between children's and adult services.

Few would quarrel with the policy direction. It has stopped short of some of the more draconian measures removing children from drug misusing parents which had been floated in the press. The 60% statistic is however telling, suggesting that children's social care may only come into play when the family situation is near collapse. Earlier intervention may serve to reduce that percentage.

Terry Bamford.