News from the 2007 International Conference

Families as Partners in Care: “How to Formally Include Families/Caregivers In your Mental Health Service” — a course for mental health providers, administrators, family advocates, policy-makers or those wishing to work with families in formal mental health systems.

I attended this course today. It was very well presented, interactive, and a great learning experience. The instructors were Dr Gráinne Fadden and Dr. Margaret Leggatt. Course participants were promised electronic versions of the presenter's the PowerPoint slides by email within the next week.

The main themes were:

1. Developing a respectful relationship with families in services ('low key interventions').
2. Evidence-based approaches to working with families ('more formal approaches').
3. Overcoming obstacles to the implementation of services for families (obstacles include, for example: confidentiality, family services not supported by management, lack of funding & resources for family services, and improperly planned discharge of a family member).
4. Carers as consultants - How carers can influence service planning and delivery ('taking on a partnership role').
   

Topics covered included:

1. Impact of mental health problems on families.
2. Role of family members on the treatment team.
3. Literature update on working with families.
4. Overcoming barriers to implementing family work.
5. Effectiveness of different therapeutic approaches.
6. Involving family members in services.

One interesting thing that I learned is that the United Kingdom has legislation requiring services to be offered to individuals who provide support to people living with a mental illness (i.e., services to carers).

Dr Gráinne Fadden
Dr. Fadden is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist (Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust), Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham and Director of Meriden, the West Midlands Family Programme. The Meriden Programme has trained over 2300 people to work with families and been awarded joint-winner of the National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE) 2003 Positive Practice Award for ‘Modernising Mental Health Services' and winner of the ‘Social Care Award' (Midlands and East Region) in the Health and Social Care Awards by the Department of Health.

Dr Fadden has worked in the area of family work throughout her career; in clinical practice, research, training and more recently in relation to influencing organisational change to incorporate family work routinely into mental health services. She has also written extensively on the effects of mental health problems on families, the ways in which families can be supported, and on the training of mental health professionals to work with families, including books, book chapters and research articles.

Dr Fadden is a member of the CSIP National Psychosocial Interventions Implementation Group. She advises the Department of Health on issues relating to families and carers and also works closely with a range of national bodies, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists, regarding these issues.

Dr. Margaret Leggatt
Dr. Leggatt received a Ph.D from Monash University in Melbourne for a study that looked at the effects on families when a son or daughter was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia.

This led her to become part of a small group of family members and professionals who started the Schizophrenia Fellowship of Victoria in 1978. She was the Founding Director of this organization for 14 years and involved with the development of education and support programmes for families, as well as accommocation and rehabilitation programmes for people with mental illnesses.

She was responsible for the commencement of SANE – Australia, an organization designed to tackle nationally, the ignorance and discriminatory attitudes towards mental illness. She is the immediate past president of the World Fellowship for Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders.

She is presently working at ORYGEN Youth Health in Parkville, Victoria, as Coodinator of the Family Participation Project. This project is designed to facilitate ‘Families-Helping-Families' during the first episode of psychosis.