The Family Model Handbook

family focused practice for you

An integrated approach to supporting mentally ill parents and their children

An integrated approach to supporting mentally ill parents and their children

The Family Model Handbook provides a comprehensive account of how mental illness in a parent or carer can affect the mental health & wellbeing of children and other family members and how others in the family can also have an important influence on the course of the affected persons illness and recovery. It also provides a description of TFM, a summary of relevant research and an account by Heide Lloyd who uses TFM as a frame to describe her lived experience.

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The Family Model Handbook is written for mental health professionals (clinicians and managers) within public sector MH services but is relevant to a much broader readership, including staff in children’s services, the non-government sector, primary care settings and family members themselves. The intention is to improve understanding about the mutual interactions and influences between symptoms, family life circumstances, parents, carers and children.

The Handbook supports a family focused, transgenerational approach to mental health partnership practice. The approach is informed by carer and consumer experiences and is based on the premise that better partnerships between family members and service providers will improve continuity of care and outcomes for all family members. Family focused practice improves communication within and between services and agencies and is more rewarding for staff. The Handbook will help readers take a broader approach when thinking about individuals and their mental health needs.

Handbook Reviews

A/Professor Darryl Mayberry

Monash University, Australia

The 322-page book covers a lot of ground and it comprehensively outlines many aspects of the parental mental illness literature. The following overview is limited to the core components of the family model (termed domains). As would be expected, ‘family’ is considered central to the model and the focus is consistently upon the parent and the child. While citing the parent and child as a focus the model details the inter-relationships between multiple individuals and factors that are proposed to influence both parent and child mental health. “How psychopathology in parents affects children and how children’s needs, in turn, impact upon and influence parental responses is the focus of this handbook, using the Family Model.” (Falkov, 2012, p. 12).

In summary, this is a detailed handbook which helps the reader think about and reflect upon the interconnected relationships between family members, parents and children and how these unique relationships may influence the onset, course and prognosis of illness. It will help any reader, regardless of professional background or service setting, think about how best to engage and work with whole families.

Indeed, “a key principle in the achievement of greater family- focused care is the explicit recognition that parenting is a mental health issue and that investment in families as a whole brings benefits beyond the well-being and recovery of the affected adult as an individual” (Falkov, 2012).

Paula Conneely

Clinical Specialist
Meriden Family Programme
England

In summary, the Family Model Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the parental mental illness landscape and is an important text for researchers and students, policy makers and clinicians. I recommend the book to readers for its gathering of important knowledge in the field but also for its theoretical approach to the key relationships that influence and are influenced by parental mental illness.