Background and literature

Mental disorders and other severe illnesses in parents represent a risk to children's development. These children have a higher risk than other children of developing mental disorders both in childhood and as adults. However, such families can be helped and disorders in children prevented. Under the Child Welfare Act and the Act on Welfare for Substance Abusers, the child's need for care and support shall be responded to if the parent has mental problems or substance abuse problems.

The Effective Family project aims to provide the service delivery system with working methods for supporting families and children when a parent has mental health problems, a severe somatic illness or other such factors that make it more difficult to cope with parenthood. The methods help support parenthood and child development. The aim is to ensure that all parents with mental health problems will receive help for their children.

The Effective Family working method is applicable wherever the parent or family is provided with care and support. They can be employed as part of both psychiatric and somatic care and other support to the family. To be able to use the method in their everyday work settings, practitioners need training. The work does not require therapy education. The Effective Family project has developed methodology training packages and ways of embedding the method in practice, and has also carried out research on the issue.

The working models aim to help the family continue their life regardless of a parent's disorder. Through co-operation with the whole family, the model supports such factors in the family's life that are known to contribute to children's ability to cope when a parent has a mental disorder or other severe illness. Such factors include parents' support for one another in parenthood and increasing the family's understanding of what is going on within it. In addition, the parents are helped to support their children's activities outside the home - school attendance, friendship relationships and hobbies. This is because in many cases the isolation of the family as a result of a parent's illness also narrows the children's social life. It is also important to refer the children to child psychiatric treatment, if need be.

Project literature

Solantaus & Ringbom (2002): Miten autan lastani? Opas vanhemmille, joilla on mielenterveyden ongelmia. Picaskript Oy Helsinki. (Opas on tilattavissa lähetyskustannushintaan Omaiset mielenterveyden tukena Uudenmaan yhdistys ry. p. 09-6860260 tai otu (at) omaisetpsyuusimaa.fi)

Solantaus & Ringbom (2005): Mikä meidän vanhempia vaivaa? Käsikirja lapsille ja nuorille, joiden äidillä tai isällä on mielenterveyden ongelmia. Edita Prima Oy. (Käsikirja on tilattavissa: Sini Toikka p. 09-3967 2287, email: etunimi.sukunimi@stakes.fi TAI Omaiset mielenterveyden tukena Uudenmaan yhdistys ry. p. 09-6860260, email: otu (at) omaisetpsyuusimaa.fi)

Beardslee & McMillan (1993): Preventive Intervention with the Children of Depressed Parents: A Case Study. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child vol 48.

Beardslee (1998): Prevention and the Clinical Encounter: American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 68 (4) October.

Beardslee (2002): Out of the Darkened Room. When a Parent Is Depressed. Protecting the Children and Strenghtening the Family. Little, Brown and Company, Boston.

Focht-Birkerts & Beardslee (2000): A Child Experience of Parental Depression: Encouraging Relational Resilience in Families with Affective Illness. Family Process vol 39, No 4:417-434.

Inkinen (toim.) (2001): Näkymätön lapsi aikuispsykiatriassa. Tammer-Paino Oy, Tampere.

Inkinen Matti & Söderblom Bitta: Vertti - Käsikirja ohjaajille, Lapset ja vanhemmat vertaisryhmässä, kun vanhemmilla on mielenterveyden ongelmia, , 1. painos 2005, http://www.profami.com/julkaisu.html

Pietilä L. (2005): Lapsikeskeinen näkökulma perusterveydenhuollossa - osa 2. Suomen Lääkärilehti 40/2005.

Solantaus & Beardslee (1996): Interventio lasten psyykkisten häiriöiden ehkäisemiseksi, Duodecim, 112 (18), 1647.

Söderblom Bitta: Lapsi masentuneen vanhempansa kanssa vertaisryhmässä -Kommunikaation ja ymmärryksen merkitys, 1. painos 2005 http://www.profami.com/julkaisu.html

Söderblom Bitta: Barnet och förälderns depression - Behovet av förståelse, vikten av kommunikation, 1. utgåva 2005 http://www.profami.com/julkaisu.html

Solantaus T. (2005): Vanhemman mielenterveyden häiriö ja lapset. Mitä terveydenhuollossa tulee tietää ja tehdä - osa 1. Suomen Lääkärilehti 38/2005.

Solantaus T, Toikka S. (2006) The Effective Family Programme. Preventative Services for the Children of Mentally Ill Parents in Finland. International Journal of Mental Health Promotion 8:37-44

Toikka S., Solantaus T. (2006) The Effective Family Programme II. Clinicians' Experiences of Training in Promotive and Preventative Methods in Child Mental Health. International Journal of Mental Health Promotion, 8 (4): 4-10.

Väisänen L. & Niemelä M. (2005): Vanhemman mielenterveyden häiriö ja lapset. Lapsikeskeinen näkökulma psykiatrisessa sairaalassa - osa 2. Suomen Lääkärilehti 39/2005.