Workforce capacity to respond to children whose parents have a mental illness.
OBJECTIVE
The first of the three objectives of this study was to identify the core barriers that impede adult mental health and other clinicians from working with patients about parenting and child-related issues. The second and third objectives were to rate the importance of these barriers and to compare barriers for adult mental health workers with other workers.


METHODS
There were two data collection phases; the first, qualitative phase involved collecting verbatim responses from 60 mental health and welfare workers, regarding barriers about working with mentally ill patients about their parenting role as well as with their children. The second involved 32 participants, including 20 adult mental health workers and 12 other workers, responding to the scaled questionnaire items based on the qualitative barriers identified at phase one.


RESULTS
The most important barriers highlighted by workers were patients not identifying their illness as a problem for their children and patients denying that they had a mental health problem. All workers reported that it was part of their role to get involved with issues regarding their patient's children. In comparison to other workers, adult mental health workers reported time and resource limitations, as well as skill and knowledge deficits regarding parenting and working with children.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings are discussed in relation to adult mental health policy and ongoing professional development, particularly for adult mental health workers.
Maybery
Darryl
D
School of Humanities and Social Science, Locked bag 678, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales 2678, Australia. dmaybery@csu.edu.au
Reupert
Andrea
A
D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D003153:Community Health Services; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004493:Education; D005196:Family Therapy; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D008605:Mental Health Services; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D012946:Social Welfare / Q000523:psychology*