Parental Mental Health and Child Welfare Network

Welcome

Welcome to the first email newsletter from the Parental Mental Health and Child Welfare Network. First, a huge thank you to those who responded to our email questionnaire. We had a 20% response rate which is excellent for a web survey. And special congratulations to Christine Jackson-Hayward who won the £25 book tokens!

Next, we are delighted to announce that the Network is about to launch its own website. SPN will be working hard to make this a dynamic and lively website with regularly updated items on government reports, national and regional events, publications, guidelines, local practice, research and other relevant news.

You will be able to access the website at: www.pmhcwn.org.uk

You will also be able to access it through the more familiar routes of the SCIE Network pages and the SPN work themes page.

We aim to produce this newsletter every couple of months keeping you up to date with new items on the website, government reports and the latest on research and evaluation.

Survey findings

The full survey findings can be found in the Network documents section, but the headline findings are:

1. Most respondents self-identify as practitioners (58%) with only 5% service users at present

2. Respondents drawn from adult mental health or other adult services 38%; children’s’ services 29%; CAMHS 17%

3. Over one quarter of respondents have been members for less than a year (26%) which reflects continuing dynamism of Network

4. Network valued for many things but especially sharing good practice (marked by 63%); then the newsletter (48%); multidisciplinary focus (43%) and the website (43%) closely followed by study days (41%).

5. Most respondents had used the website 1-5 times in the past year (72%)

6. A newsletter to prompt about the website was the most popular way for increasing membership usage of the network (67%). Highlighting good practice; and sharing innovative ideas were the joint second most highly rated aspects for development (55% each)

7. Top study day choices were in order of first preferences: Perinatal mental health and wellbeing (32%), Safeguarding children (31%) and Personality Disorders (19%)

8. On a study day fee 19% said a fee would prevent attendance, 23% said it wouldn’t and 59% said it might affect attendance

9. Only 14% would definitely pay a subscription, 45% might and 41% would not.

10. Increased service user involvement in policy and practice discussions (66%) and the steering group (64%) were most highly rated.

Study Days

Acting on the findings the Steering Group has decided to hold study days in late November and February on safeguarding children in fragmented families and perinatal mental health. Keep an eye on the website for more information on dates and content. More next time.

Family Nurse Partnership

Although sometimes depicted in the press as the nanny state gone mad, early intervention is the key to protecting children in vulnerable households. That is the belief underpinning the latest initiative from the Social Exclusion Unit. For full details of the scheme and how it is intended to operate can be found in this presentation (PDF file) on the Cabinet Office website.

Think Family

That’s the message from the latest Cabinet Office paper Reaching Out: Think Family (Summary and report). The message is very clear. As the Press Release said “We want to extend the benefits of the Every Child Matters approach, which has a common vision, clear accountability, joined-up working, information sharing and core processes and assessments. We want to broaden this approach to the whole family so that adults’ and children’s services work together to tackle the root causes of children’s disadvantages that often lay in the difficulties of their parents”.

And so say all of us. Achieving the vision is always tougher than articulating it but the PMHCWN has certainly an important part to play in promoting joint working across the barriers.

SCIE/NICE Guidelines

Here’s the latest SCIE/NICE Guidelines update as reported to the Steering Group.

Interested in Joining the Steering Group?

Help shape the future development of the Network. We’re interested in hearing from you. Read the minutes of the last meeting. We are particularly interested in developing a more diverse Group, securing representation from statutory childrens’ services, third sector adult and family services and service user and carer groups.