Parental Mental Health and Child Welfare Network

March 2009 Newsletter

Oh what a relief spring is finally showing signs of springing. Meanwhile the media is full of stories of Britain’s mind-boggling levels of theoretical debt – imagine if all that was translated into real money that was spent on making us all happier. Personalisation as holidays in Barbados perhaps?

In a recent survey of social workers (based on 500 interviews) Community Care found that despite problems with public perception, too much paperwork and not enough time to spend with clients, 82% reported that they were happy. A sense of humour was at the centre of qualities seen as needed to be a social worker. Perhaps these two findings are not unrelated.

NICE Personality Disorders Guidance

The labels of personality disorders (pd) of various kinds are a matter of some controversy and are some of the most stigmatised mental health diagnoses around. Having a diagnosis of pd of one kind or another has in the past been used as a reason for excluding people from mental health services. With recent developments including the government’s ‘No longer a diagnosis of exclusion’ policy in 2003 and establishment of regional managed pd networks, the situation has improved somewhat, but the availability of specialist services continues to be patchy and the evidence for specific interventions patchy (’significant limitations’ according to NICE).

At the end of January two new sets of NICE guidance were published, about treatment and support for people with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorders Separate guidelines have been developed concerning people who have been diagnosed as having antisocial personality disorder. The authors of these guidelines state that with the development of specialist services in every mental health trust, they hope ‘that these two groups of often traumatised and mistreated people will get the help they need and be less stigmatised’. (Kendall et al, 2009: BMJ 2009;338:b93 doi:10.1136/bmj.b93).

The guidelines are refreshingly broad in their coverage, including psychological treatments, access to services and the nature of relationships needed to support people with borderline pd – building trusting and optimistic relationships being the key. They emphasise the importance of staff supervision and encouraging people to consider different treatments and life choices. In relation to antisocial personality disorders the guidelines focus on prevention and make specific recommendations about working with the families of children with potential difficulties, even from pre-school age, and children developing conduct problems at different ages. Group based parent training programmes are recommended.

PMHCWN Study Day on Personality Disorders and Parenting

Next Monday 16 March in Leeds, we will be coordinating our fourth study day for Network members and others, this time to unwrap some of the issues and look at ways of understanding and better supporting parenting by people with diagnoses of personality disorders. If you miss this one but have an interest in personality disorders and parenting, let us know as we will be holding a second event further south in September.

Having a Parent with a Mental Health Problem

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has produced a new film aimed at young carers themselves, in which young carers talk about their lives caring for a parent with a mental health problem. Narrated by Chineye, a young carer herself, the film also explains in a very simple and visual way how the brain is believed to work and what happens when things go wrong – described as ‘the filter that only allows through information that is needed can go wrong and the person’s brain can become flooded with information and the person feels overwhelmed with emotions.’ Medication is described as a plaster rather than a cure which is somewhat of an over-simplification, but the film could be valuable to children and young people seeking to gain some basic understanding of mental health from a biochemical perspective:

We’ll be back with more news next month including a report from our study day, news of some new joint protocols and the final report from the Action 16 programme.

Happy March.

Vicky Nicholls
Network Coordinator