CPD listing

Short Course on Developing Skills in Collaborative Work with Parental Mental Illness (CPD35)

The importance of bringing both a family perspective and an integrated approach into work with children in need or children at risk has been emphasised (Every Child Matters 2004, Social Exclusion Taskforce 2007), as has the requirement to assess the needs of young carers when  providing services for mentally ill parents (Social Care Institute for Excellence 2009).

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This highlights the importance of providing opportunities for professionals in child and adult services to learn together and to share practice perspectives, skills and expertise. The family  systems approach which addresses the relational contexts for both children and adults as well as the professional cultures that evolve around them, is ideally suited to this task.

This course will be multidisciplinary and is suitable for those working in both child and adult services. It is for all professionals working with children in adversity and for those who work in the adult mental health field. It will present best practice in this field and provide the opportunity for those working in child and adult services to consider developments in their own services.

Course Aims

The course aims to equip participants with knowledge and skills from the family systems approach, in order to increase their confidence in engaging effectively with parents and children in the context of parental mental  illness. Ideas from the family systems approach include understanding the part played by familial, social and cultural contexts in the construction of meaning systems, the patterns and connections that evolve between different people and different positions within a system and the impact of practitioners' own attitudes and beliefs on their interactions with clients and other professionals.

Skills include engagement, reframing, systemic hypothesising and the use of reflective processes. All these skills are relevant to a range of professional tasks including care planning, risk assessments and family support.

Course Content

The course will cover:

1) Skills in inter-professional and inter-agency collaboration, especially regarding the needs of and risks to children

2) Ways of listening to and eliciting children's ideas and knowledge regarding a parent's mental illness 

3) Skills in highlighting a ‘parental’ as well as a ‘patient’ identity when working with adults who have had a long immersion in mental health services and eliciting their beliefs about and aspirations for parenting 

4) How to help parents and children to talk together about their anxieties and their ways of coping

5) Ideas from the family systems approach which help  understand the unique circumstances and histories of each family and how these may impact upon their relationships and their interaction with professionals and services 

6) Mapping and engaging with the support systems available to families including extended family, professional and other services 

7) Addressing cultural diversity and the effects of inequality and social marginalisation 

This course will have an emphasis on practical skills, the opportunity for case presentation and the encouragement of new ways of collaborative working with ‘hard to engage’ parents and families. Presentations from visiting speakers will include the development of innovative services and there will also be input from users, both parents and child carers.

Is This Course Right For You?

The short course is aimed at:

Community  based mental health professionals e.g.  community psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists

Staff from in-patient psychiatric units

Social workers in both children and family and adult  mental health services

Family centre workers

CAMHS professionals

Schools counsellors and practitioners from the voluntary sector

Organising Tutor

Gwyn Daniel is a systemic psychotherapist and trainer at the Tavistock Clinic who has experience of working in both children's services and in adult mental health. She has run workshops on this topic in London, Oxford, Belfast and Sydney.

She is co-author (with Bernadette Wren) of ‘Narrative  therapy with families where a parent has a mental health problem’ in Vetere and Dowling (eds) ‘Narrative work with children and their families’, Brunner- Routledge 2005.
 

Times and Dates

The course will run on Tuesdays, 9.30am - 1.00pm.   

8, 15, 29 May  2012
5, 26 June 2012
 

Further Details

For an informal chat about the course, please contact the organising tutor:

Gwyn Daniel
Email: danielgwyn@googlemail.com