Treatment under the traditional medical model has largely ignored the family's knowledge, expertise and potential therapeutic effects on hospitalized mentally ill people. This paper reviews the family's role as caregiver. It reports on an evaluation of services by caregivers. Its findings reflect views stated in other surveys in identifying the need for improvement in education and social support for families, greater family involvement in the patient's care and improvement in staff attitudes towards families. The study concludes by describing the development of a family support project in a Nursing Practice Development Unit in a secure ward and offers a blueprint for mental health nurses in facilitating the more active involvement of families in the recovery of their family members.

The paper identifies shortcomings of approaches used in organizing and delivering mental health nursing. It provides a rationale for the development of a new system of mental health nursing namely the Partnership in Coping system (PinC). This system has been developed by service users, clinical mental health nurses and an academic mental health nurse. Currently, it is undergoing trials in Western Australia. The PinC focuses on the strengths of clients. It uses the positive aspects of mental health nursing namely its holistic perspective, the length and nature of the informal contacts, the 'ordinariness' of relationships with clients and the nurse's knowledge of the clients' social and physical environments. It is a versatile system that can also be used across different mental health settings (community and inpatient facilities). The paper describes the philosophy behind the system, the concept of coping, the nature of the partnership between the client and nurse and their respective roles.