Parenting and Mental Health in the UK
Research shows that serious psychiatric disturbance is a factor in about 30% of infanticides (Dept of Health 2008).
Research (Meltzer et al 2004) found that almost half of looked after children had a mental disorder.
Despite increased recognition of mental health, there remain huge gaps in services that cover both parenting and mental health in the UK.
In terms of child fatalities, critical periods are in the postnatal period, and in the period following treatment in a psychiatric hospital. For both of these periods in parents' lives it is key that the right support is given, and that parents are able to articulate suicidal or psychotic states without fear that their children will be taken from them.
Support in the home, such as that offered by a Family Nurse Partnership, is stigma free and less expensive than taking children into care but is often only available to under 19s identified as vulnerable first-time mothers. Meanwhile Health Visitors have workloads that are far too big to enable them to do the job they want and need to do.
Wealthier parents can access au-pairs or counselling; offering these to other parents gives them agency, and is less expensive to the state and less damaging to children who may otherwise end up in care.
For research and other articles regarding Parenting and Mental Health in the UK, click on the links below
A public health approach to mental health keeps families together