Parental Mental Health

Toolkit – Think CHILD

Parental mental health has featured in Rapid Reviews and Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews (previously SCR’s) locally and is present in a high numbers of national reviews. The THINK CHILD practice guidance and toolkit has been developed to support professionals to work collaboratively with parents via a conversational guide, to understand the impact of mental health on their children.  This is increasingly important in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic which is amplifying stress and mental health difficulties. 

Key messages from the toolkit include:

• The purpose of the toolkit is not to assess mental health but to understand impact of mental health on children
• Open conversations stimulate family and professional curiosity with regards to the life of a child
• Open dialogue with other professionals and family and friends around mental health promotes improved understanding and supportive networks
• Mental health and wellbeing fluctuates and professionals and families need to be adaptable and respond to those changes

Think Child Practice Guidance has also been published on the Policy & procedures page: Policies and procedures | Salford Safeguarding Children Partnership.

For more information and support for children of parents with a mental illness visit the Our Time website.