Profession Differences in Family Focused Practice in the Adult Mental Health System

Abstract

There is a large gulf between what psychiatric services should (or could) provide and what they do in practice. This article sought to determine practice differences between the differing professions working in adult mental health services in terms of their family focused work. Three hundred and seven adult mental health professionals completed a cross-sectional survey of family focused practices in adult mental health services. Findings highlight that social workers engaged in more family focused practice compared to psychiatric nurses, who performed consistently the lowest on direct family care, compared to both social workers and psychologists. Clear skill, knowledge, and confidence differences are indicated between the professions. The article concludes by offering direction for future profession education and training in family focused practices.

Differences Between Irish and Australian Psychiatric Nurses' Family-Focused Practice in Adult Mental Health Services

“…While different professionals should work together to support these families, psychiatric nurses are in a unique position to engage in FFP (Cusack & Killoury 2012;Maybery et al 2014). They are the largest staff group involved in the provision of mental health care and are often the first point of contact for parents who are receiving treatment in adult mental health services (Foster et al 2012).…”

“…However, notwithstanding the importance of FFP, evidence suggests that mental health professionals, including psychiatric nurses, experience difficulty in FFP (Houlihan et al 2013;Maybery et al 2014;Maybery & Reupert, 2006. Whilst mental health professionals might want to work with children and other family members they report clear knowledge and skill deficits in relation to (1) working with children, (2) working with service users on parenting issues, and (3) working with the whole family (Houlihan et al 2013;Liangas & Falkov 2014).…”

“…Whilst mental health professionals might want to work with children and other family members they report clear knowledge and skill deficits in relation to (1) working with children, (2) working with service users on parenting issues, and (3) working with the whole family (Houlihan et al 2013;Liangas & Falkov 2014). They are often unsure how to connect with families and what outcomes to aim for (Maybery et al 2014). …”

“…approach to care (Cusack & Killoury 2012;Maybery et al 2014 The definition of FFP in this paper entails working with service users on issues related to parenting with a mental illness, and directly working with, and supporting service users' children (who are younger than 18 years of age) and other adult family members (Grant 2014). The term 'service user' denotes adults, who are also parents of dependent children, and who are receiving public mental health services in either community or acute in-patient settings.…”

Families with parental mental illness: supporting children in psychiatric and social services

“…Psychiatric services often neglect the children of such parents (Korhonen, Vehviläinen-Julkunen, and Pietilä 2008;Maybery et al 2014), which might result in fewer psychiatric referrals to social services departments. Often only the most severely troubled families are referred to social services through their own applications, but the majority of parents in need never receive any contact .…”