children of parents with a mental illness (copmi) · [email protected] the copmi national...
TRANSCRIPT
In June 2010, the Australian Infant Child
Adolescent and Family Mental Health
Association (AICAFMHA) signed a funding
agreement with the Australian Government
Department of Health and Ageing to continue
the work of the Children Of Parents with a
Mental Illness (COPMI) national initiative until
June 2012.
Commencing in 2002, the aim of the COPMI
initiative continues to be the promotion of
better mental health outcomes for children
of parents with a mental health problem or
disorder.
Children and families where a parent
experiences mental illness can be supported by
accessing information and education about
mental illness, factors that can possibly put
children’s wellbeing at risk and ways their
wellbeing can be enhanced.
The current phase of the COPMI initiative
includes:
development of a DVD for families where
a parent lives with depression or anxiety and
specific information for fathers (see page
3)
continued promotion of a range of free
information resources for families and
those who work with them including the
Principles and Actions for Services and People
Working with Children of Parents with a Mental
Illness (see page 3).
KEY
AREAS
Workforce
Development
2
Evidence Base 2
Information
Resources
3
Consumer and
Carer
Participation
3
New Online
Evaluation
Resource
4
Children Of Parents with a Mental Illness (COPMI) O C T O B E R 2 0 1 0 N A T I O N A L I N I T I A T I V E
Another key focus of the COPMI initiative is
workforce education to help professionals
focus on the whole family (including children);
not solely the parent with the illness. An
exciting new development in this area is the
creation of a web-based training program for
GPs and others who provide mental health
services to parents in the community who
experience the highly prevalent problems of
depression and anxiety (see page 2).
Parent consumers of mental health services and
their carers (including young people) continue
to be valued and involved in the COPMI
national initiative in a variety of ways (see page
3). COPMI continues to consult with a range
of stakeholders, liaise and form partnerships
where-ever possible with others who:
provide information (e.g. beyondblue, SANE)
educate professionals (e.g. health
departments and professional
associations)
provide services to children and families.
Encouraging service providers to base their
programs and services on evidence and to
evaluate their practice, also continues to be a
major theme of the initiative (see page 4).
For regular updates on the progress of the
COPMI initiative, please visit the COPMI
website and check our ‘News’ section
(http://www.copmi.net.au/news/updates.html).
Elizabeth Fudge
COPMI Project Manager
Workforce Development Goals of the Intervention
To inform parents about
depression, risk and resilience in
children
To help families understand
resilience and encourage it in their
own children
To help families recognise the
present needs of the child and
know how to get help if difficulties
develop
To help families plan for the future
Over time, to help families develop
new strategies for talking about
illness and related adversities
To develop new behaviour and
attitudes about the illness
To develop new fundamental
coping processes in enhancing
resilience and communication.
This will be achieved through the use of
videos, photos, audio tapes, written
materials, actors and by consumers,
carers and young people who consent to
being filmed.
We will continue to promote the
Keeping Families and Children in Mind
online mental health worker education
resource that was released in 2009.
For more information about the
workforce development training
resources contact:
Brad Morgan
The COPMI national initiative has been
funded to provide an online e-learning
resource that will provide mental health
professionals with specialised
intervention skills and knowledge to
work with children and families where a
parent is living with depression or
anxiety.
The resource will be based on the
adaptation of the ‘Family Talk
Intervention’ protocol. This intervention
has strong evidence for promoting
resilience factors in children where there
is a family history of mental illness.
The Intervention Protocol
The modules will focus on mental health
promotion, prevention and early
intervention. The consumers voice will
be integral within each module and
families will present their perspectives
and experiences.
P A G E 2
The COPMI initiative is committed to enhancing information exchange between researchers, service funders and providers
regarding research and evaluation of services for children of parents with a mental illness.
During this funding phase, the following activities will assist in this goal.
Develop a clearinghouse for new relevant research and evaluation projects which aims to:
Provide easily accessible information to assist practitioners and others to implement evidence based practice
Exchange linkages between researchers and practitioners
Assist AICAFMHA to promote evidence to relevant service funders and providers
Foster the development of the evidence-base regarding the COPMI workforce development e-learning resource (launched in 2009)
and support the publication of the outcomes
Enhance linkages between researchers involved in relevant service efficacy evaluations and/or mental health promotion and illness
prevention research and promote evidence to service funders and providers
The DVD, e-learning training resource for primary mental health workers and resources specifically for fathers will be pilot tested with
a sample of ‘end-users’ from both the urban and rural areas of Australia across at least two jurisdictions. Evaluation results from the
pilot testing will be used to enhance the effectiveness and usability of the final products.
The COPMI Gateways to Evidence that MatterS (GEMS) publication and the Evaluating Your Intervention web pages
(http://www.copmi.net.au/ee/evaluate_interventions.html)will also continue to be produced and updated.
Dr Andrea Reupert and Dr Darryl Maybery have been contracted to support work in the evaluation
and research areas.
Evidence-Base
P A G E 3
See our free
resources for
families and those
who work with
them
Information Resources One of the main aims for the
2010-2012 phase of the
COPMI national initiative will
be enhancing access to
information and education
for family members
and carers
(including children)
where a parent
experiences depression
and/or anxiety.
A DVD will be developed and
pilot-tested to provide parents
and their families with an
understanding of the potential
impact of parenting and
depression/anxiety and of
depression/anxiety on
parenting.
Information resources
specifically for fathers and/or
those who work with these
fathers will also be developed
and pilot tested.
The aim of these resources will be
to improve access to information
to assist parents to support their
children’s mental health.
COPMI will continue to
promote and distribute the
current range of free
COPMI resources which
are also available for downloading
from the COPMI website.
Family Talk*
Tips and information for families
where a parent has a mental
health problem or disorder.
The Best For Me and My
Baby*
Managing mental health during
pregnancy and early parenthood.
Piecing the Puzzle Together*
Information to support families
with children aged between 2 and
Contact:
Nitsa Portokallas
Debbie Fairchild
7. It’s also for partners, families
and friends. Featuring helpful
ideas about being the best parent
you can when you’re not as well
as you’d like to be and ways to
support your child’s development
during their special early years.
Helping to Piece the Puzzle
Together
A resource for early childhood
workers to supplement the
booklet ‘Piecing the Puzzle
Together’.
*Also available in the
following languages:
Swahili, Spanish, Chinese, Dinka,
Hindi and Arabic.
COPMI National Family
Forum
See Consumer and Carer
Participation on the
COPMI website
(http://www.copmi.net.au/
cons_carer/index.html) groups. Some people will bring
knowledge and experience from
more than one perspective.
There are many opportunities to
engage with the COPMI national
initiative. They include (but are
not limited to) the following:
e-list
COPMI National Reference
Group
COPMI National Family Forum
Workshops
Focus groups
Peer reviewer for information
and resources
Peer Researcher
Workforce development
projects
Journal articles
Consumers and carers have
always had highly valued roles
within the COPMI national
initiative and the team remains
committed to consumer and
carer participation. COPMI
strives to acknowledge, value and
incorporate the perspectives and
understandings of consumers,
carers and young people gained
through their lived experience
and to use the information to
enhance COPMI knowledge,
information and resources.
COPMI endeavours to engage
with a range of people from
diverse populations including
consumers, carers, young people,
people from culturally and
linguistically diverse backgrounds,
Indigenous, rural, single parent,
foster carer and grandparent
Consumer and Carer Participation Education and training of
workers
Media and communication
Newsletter items
Groups for particular
communities
Conference presentations.
The range of participation options
are flexible to ensure that people
are able to participate according
to their availability, skills and
experience. Consumers and
carers are supported throughout
their participation by the
Consumer and Carer
Participation Officer.
Contact:
Lydia Du Rieu
FREE
PO Box 387
Stepney
South Australia 5069
Phone: (08) 8132 0786
Fax: (08) 8132 0787
Email: [email protected]
COPMI Team
Location & Contact Details
Ground Floor
77 King William Road.
North Adelaide
South Australia 5006
Phone: (08) 8367 0888
www.copmi.net.au
AICAFMHA Australian Infant Child
Adolescent Family
Mental Health
Association
New Online Evaluation Resource If you are new to planning an evidence-based program or
would like to improve the way you currently evaluate a
program, the COPMI Evaluating Your Intervention online
resource (http://www.copmi.net.au/ee/
evaluate_interventions.html) will assist you to plan and
implement an effective evaluation.
Evaluation relies on clearly identifying the goals of a project,
intended outcomes for participants, and testing them
against results. Effective evaluation comes from clear
objectives and measurable data. Being clear about program
goals and structuring your intervention so you can collect
evidence about its effectiveness will enable you to evaluate
your program and identify program improvements.
‘Evaluating Your Intervention’ aims to address and help
program planners and facilitators to:
understand what makes a good evaluation
select and use an evaluation tool that suits their
interventions
add to the pool of evidence about the ‘copmi’
approach
plan future interventions.
The resource provides information on common program
outcomes and evaluation measures and is divided into the
following four specific program areas:
young people
parents, carers and families
workforce
community.
For further information about the Australian COPMI
initiative, please contact the
COPMI Project Manager
Elizabeth Fudge
www.aicafmha.net.au
P A G E 4