Louisa M. Drost

Intervention programs for children whose parents have a mental illness: a review.

Objective: To identify and describe intervention programs to improve outcomes for children whose parents have a mental illness.

Developing an interactive website for adolescents with a mentally ill family member

Adolescents with a mentally ill parent are at high risk for developing a disorder themselves. It is widely recommended that these adolescents be provided with preventive interventions designed especially for them, but their avoidance of professional help is a common problem. Because most teenagers in Western societies use the World Wide Web as a means of social interaction, use of the Internet for reaching these young people would appear to be a promising option. In this article, the authors describe the development of Survivalkid.nl, an interactive, Internet-delivered, preventive intervention for supporting adolescents with a mentally ill family member. Usage statistics with regard to frequency and duration of visits and amount of activity during visits suggest that: (a) the target group has been better served than before the site was launched; and (b) we have accomplished our goal of expanding the range of support.

Online support for children of parents suffering from mental illness: A case study

From epidemiologic research, we know that children of parents with a mental illness (COPMI) have an elevated risk of developing a serious mental disorder. Aside from studies based on risk and resilience, there has been little research on the children’s own perceptions. The aim of this study was to expand our understanding of key variables influencing COPMI’s seeking support and to explore whether a website targeted at COPMI could help them improve their ability to cope with their circumstances and to find professional help. This case study illustrates one visitor’s use of a website that was specifically designed to help COPMI. The visitor was a young adult female whose two parents both suffered from mental illness. She participated for 3 years in an intervention delivered through the website. Several things helped to inform us about her perspective on living with parents suffering from mental illness, her use of the website and the benefits she derived from using the website. These included (a) her story as she told it in the exit interview, (b) her messages to her peers and counsellors, (c) her user data and (d) the content of her chat conversations with her peers.

Internet Support for Adolescents With a Mentally Ill Family Member

The Frontline Reports column features short descriptions of novel approaches to mental health problems or creative applications of established concepts in different settings. Material submitted for the column should be 350 to 750 words long, with a maximum of three authors (one is preferred) and no references, tables, or figures. Send material to Francine Cournos, M.D., at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (fc15@columbia.edu) or to Stephen M. Goldfinger, M.D., at SUNY Downstate Medical Center (smgoldfingermd@aol.com).

Developing a shared research agenda for working with families where a parent has a mental illness

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to identify a shared, international and inter-disciplinary research agenda amongst practitioners, researchers and administrators, in relation to families where a parent has a mental illness. Fifty-seven participants, identified as key informants were invited to respond to the following query: “What key research question(s) do you want answered that if answered would help to significantly improve services to families where a parent has a mental illness?” 144 responses were qualitatively analyzed by three members of the research team. In order of frequency, the resulting research agendas were: (i) service re-orientation, (ii) interventions (iii) risk and protective factors, (iv) parent, child and family feedback and involvement, (v) stigma and (vi) reach and access. Overall, this study provides an indication of priority research areas, which according to stakeholders are most in need of investigation.

De onbekende mantelzorger en www.Survivalkid.nl

SamenvattingInformal young caregivers and www.survivalkid.nlA large number of children in the Netherlands grow up with a physically or mentally ill or addicted family member. They run the risk of developing problems themselves. Special preventive activities have been developed to support this group of young people. The problem is, however, that these ’young caregivers’ are difficult to reach. In this article an analysis is presented of why this is so and a different approach to this target group is described in order to better reach them. On www.survivalkid.nl young people can, anonymously, chat with companions, mail and chat with coaches, find information, do little tests and exercises, keep a weblog, etc. Various organisations can use this online opportunity to come into contact with this invisible group and offer the young support from their own expertise and background. Survivalkid as an example of a junction for integrated care.Keywords: informal young caregivers, mental illness, physical illness, substance abuse disorder, addiction, prevention, online support, family careAbstractInformal young caregivers and www.survivalkid.nlA large number of children in the Netherlands grow up with a physically or mentally ill or addicted family member. They run the risk of developing problems themselves. Special preventive activities have been developed to support this group of young people. The problem is, however, that these ’young caregivers’ are difficult to reach. In this article an analysis is presented of why this is so and a different approach to this target group is described in order to better reach them. On www.survivalkid.nl young people can, anonymously, chat with companions, mail and chat with coaches, find information, do little tests and exercises, keep a weblog, etc. Various organisations can use this online opportunity to come into contact with this invisible group and offer the young support from their own expertise and background. Survivalkid as an example of a junction for integrated care.Keywords: informal young caregivers, mental illness, physical illness, substance abuse disorder, addiction, prevention, online support, family care

Social support in chat sessions for adolescents and young adults living with a family member with mental illness

Children from families with a mental illness are at risk of developing negative health outcomes. Online interventions are a new way to offer support to these children. The present study utilized a website that had been developed to support Dutch youth who had a family member with a mental illness. The objective was to analyse monitored and unmonitored chatroom conversations among these young people, and specifically to compare supportive messages and self-disclosures of experiences. We electronically imported session transcripts of 34 chatroom conversations into the qualitative analysis software Atlas.ti. A content analysis was performed on 4252 messages from 22 female participants. A correlational analysis was then conducted to identify significant associations between sent and received supportive statements and disclosing statements. We found supporting comments in approximately 34% of the conversations and disclosures of problems in the home in approximately 15-18% of the messages. Participants made approximately twice as many disclosing statements and approximately half as many supportive statements in the monitored sessions compared to the unmonitored sessions. The number of disclosures that were sent was positively correlated with the amount of social support that was received. The number of disclosures sent was negatively correlated with the amount of social support that was sent, but only in the unmonitored sessions. Considering the greater reach of Internet interventions, online chatroom sessions might be provided as complementary to, or as an alternative to, face-to-face groups for supporting youth with a family member who has a mental illness.