Should doctors working with parents with mental health issues be compelled to pass that information to social services?

The psychiatrist are not there to treat the children though, they are there to treat their patient. What is best for the patient is not always best for the child. How often does the therapist ever even meet the children of their patients? All they know is what the patient says and what they can reasonably guess to be the case.

Children of people with mental health problems are often, effectively, young carers but are not really recognised as such and don't get given any support.

I agree that more help for child carers would be better - this costs a lot of money. My ideal, as I said up thread would be help at home, to ensure children get to school on time, fed and appropriately dressed, make sure they have dinner, that someone cares if they do their homework.

I know loads of people are going to be horribly offended by that list, but those are key things that can get missed. It also just gives an extra person around the home for the child to talk to about how they are feeling and coping.

Everyone has gone NOOO not SS! I'm not abusing/neglecting my kids. But SS isn't/shouldn't be just about that. It should also be about putting families together with the help they need to get through a rough patch. If they had more funding, this kind of thing would be so, so helpful to those children.

I am someone who grew up with a bi-polar parent, we also took in my best friend (also bipolar!). I didn't get any therapy until I went and cried at my GP and asked for it after DD was born. I was never given any help or support even from my school who knew what was going on.

I am lucky compared to my cousin whose mother is schizophrenic. Everything was about helping his mum, and he was left to eat nothing but bread and butter and drink nothing but coke, and drop out of school because that was 'good enough' care.

He needed help and he didn't get any.

What do we even know about longer term outcomes for children of mentally ill parents? Maybe there is no cause for concern after all. I know when I raise the subject my psychiatrist misunderstands and thinks I want reassurance that I'm doing a good job.

Perhaps it would be more effective to offer family support attached to the MH team who can refer to SS if the family is in agreement or there is a CP concern.

No matter how much effort goes into changing people's perception of SS there will always be scare stories and media twisting facts so some parents will avoid asking for support if they know there will be an autonatic referral to SS.

I fail to see how a SW doing an initial assessment will have a better understanding of how a parent's MH issue could affect a child than the psychiatrists who are qualified to treat them.

Perhaps it doesn't need to be the main ss, perhaps a mh sw with special training in supporting young carers in a family context could be attached to each community team?

The mental health professionals already refer families to SS for support as well as if there is a CP concern. What is needed is funding for SS to give that support because at the moment they get assessed and then told they can have nothing unless the child is judged to be at risk.

I think the safeguarding threshold is quite high, somewhere between that and everything being fine there must be lots of invisible and worried children who don't understand what's going on.

Perhaps not in primary care but when people are more unwell?

What do people think is the best way of not overlooking children's needs without deterring people from seeking help? Should everyone in the family have a carer's assessment automatically?

As a general rule, no.

However there is already something in place. A dr or MH nurse will tell someone at the start of an appt that stuff is confidential unless there is something that's deemed a child protection issue and then they have to report. So that safeguard is already there.

I think anything above that will discourage people from getting help.

If this had been in place when I needed help, I would not have gone to my GP.

Sincerely hope this never comes into force

I asked for help and support for my son and husband. Over and over, we asked social care, sure start, doctors, etc when I was admitted. They couldn't help because my husband works full time and earns too much £30k).

I think there is such an unhelpful taboo wrt ss that the system suggested above at present would deter people from seeking medical help as is clearly seen from the posts above. It would be more productive if the myths surrounding the work of the ss were addressed to dispel the notion that they are eager to pounce and snatch babies away.

I agree with you there, and I don't think it should be an automatic referral but as a previous poster said a home visit from a suitably qualified family support or youth worker would be good. I hope my children aren't damaged and I know I don't hit or starve or otherwise abuse them but I have long episodes of depression where I'm detached from them. It can't be good for them. :( There is lots of help for me, I have a great cpn and psychiatrist but nobody has ever assessed the children to see if they need extra support.

Thats a good and fair point but there are degrees of mental illness, not everyone needs that levels of support and those that do should get it. I dont however think ss are necessarily the right service.

I know enough about my own mental illness to recognise retrospectively that when I've been ill in hospital or having treatment at home nobody has put the children first. It shouldn't be stigmatising to ask the question about how best to support young carers.

Well nothing that guy said made me think they need to do this.
GPs and psychiatrists can already refer to SS if they feel a family needs support. All that is lacking is the funding for supporting those families before they reach crisis point.

Another box ticking exercise and more paperwork for clinicians and SWs is the last thing anyone needs.

a bloody awful idea. there are many fab SWs but this would stigmatise the parent and we would then be made subject to other peoples interpretations of MH issues. it would feed the inherant paranoia and would only make people not come forward for treatment. this would cause greater problems.

there are very few parents with MH issues that are a danger to their children.

Agree completely, Lucyellensmum.

To put this in perspective, there are parents on MN with severe physical impairments who have begged and begged for more help from SS and got zilch, even when SS are legally obliged to provide it.

IIRC, at least one disabled MNer has had SS threaten to open child protection proceedings if she doesn't drop her request for domestic assistance.

So what is this magical extra "support" that would be forthcoming if we had compulsory notification?

Hear hear, lucyellensmum.

joiemecconue"Nobody with a severe mental illness is going to be managing just fine otherwise how is the illness causing the 'severe impairment' necessary for diagnosis?" You clearly know nothing about mental illness.

I have mental illness - I need help, I am getting it, from my GP and via counselling. I do NOT need a social worker and I do not emotionally neglect my DD. I do not need extra support in caring for my child - its the one thing i CAN do actually.

It will serve no 'useful' purpose than to further stigmatise those with mental health problems and reverse much good work done by professionals and stakeholders over the past fifteen to twenty years.

It truly is a slippery slope..... [frown]

If I thought for one minute SS would be informed about my PND I would not have gone to my GP. I must admit my HV came round a few times unannounced after I was prescribed Ads, just to see how I was doing. Perhaps she was checking all was ok. And if it weren't she might have contacted SS. But as a one size fits all rule. Bad idea, really bad.