Parenting
Two sets of materials: the first focuses on the need to revise state legislations restricting the custody rights of parents with mental illnesses; the second outlines both online and telephone strategies to support the parenting skills of mothers and fathers with mental health conditions.
Leisure Education Toolkit for Parents with Mental Illnesses
Leisure participation is important for the development of healthy family relationships. This toolkit is an evidence-based guide that will help parents better understand the importance of family leisure and develop strategies to participate in meaningful family leisure. Research on the need for family leisure, potential benefits, and strategies to increase participation are presented. This user friendly guide provides worksheets and activities that parents can use with their children to make the most out of family leisure. For individuals who want to receive additional support, each section also provides an opportunity to summarize goals and issues that can be shared with a mental health professional. Download now to learn more about: (1) the benefits of family leisure; (2) core and balance family leisure; (3) strategies to assess family leisure interest; (4) barriers to and facilitators of family leisure; (5) planning and making time for family leisure; and (6) using leisure to talk with your kids about mental illnesses.
A Parenting Resources Worksheet
This worksheet provides a template for services to generate a list of local resources for parents with psychiatric disabilities, including legal, housing, emergency respite services, and childcare, etc.
Learn About Special Needs Trusts
A Special Needs Trust can be created by a parent or guardian to benefit a person with a disability upon the death of a parent, allowing consumers to benefit from the trust while continuing to receive public benefits. These materials were developed by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law with support from the Temple University Collaborative.
Myths about Parents with Mental Illnesses
This brief fact sheet looks at the prevailing myths about parents with mental illnesses (e.g., that they are unwilling or unable to care adequately for their own children, etc.) with the evidence-based facts with regard to parenting performance and long-term outcomes – a useful guide to consumers and advocates
Parenting With a Mental Illness
Parents who experience mental health conditions may have unique experiences and issues. Based on our research, this single page document provides consumers, providers, policymakers, and other stakeholders with information about common barriers parents may face, supports that may be available, and how our parents might use resources from the Temple University Collaborative.
Peers In Practice: Parents with Mental Health Issues
Our first Peers in Practice document, written by Fred McLaren, MS, CPS, looks at the challenges of parenting with a mental health condition and the role Peer Specialists can play in supporting their clients with the needs and challenges of parenting.
Positive Parenting and Child Resilience – A Training Handout
This fact sheet provides evidence-based guidance to parents with regard to effective ways to provide ‘positive parenting’ that can increase resiliency in children and also prevent custody loss.
Custody
A Model Reunification Statute
To help inform consumers, lawyers, mental health advocates, and legislators, the Temple University Collaborative and the Bazelon Center have created a model statute for state legislatures in developing more appropriate guidelines that encourage keeping families together rather than permitting the use of mental illnesses as grounds for denying custody rights to parents with disabilities.
Child Custody Laws
This brief fact sheet provides a national overview of child custody laws as they apply to the use of mental illnesses as grounds for denying custody to parents with psychiatric disabilities, as well as recommendations for challenging current discriminatory laws through education (of lawyers and judges), public awareness, and legislative change.
Child Welfare and Custody issues
This fact sheet is designed for parents and their supporters, it provides tips for navigating the child welfare and legal systems. If the parents’ custody rights are challenged, it is an important document for parents with psychiatric disabilities in facing system discrimination.
Custody Assessment Worksheet
This worksheet allows mental health personnel to make a comprehensive assessment of particular parents’ child custody arrangement, which may be complicated, as an aide to working with parents to improve parenting skills and prevent loss of custody.
Foster Care and Custody
This brief fact sheet provides an overview of a national and state foster care services and the way in which foster care systems interact with children and parents when the parents have been denied custody of their own children due to mental illnesses. Suggestions are provided for parents and others interacting with foster care providers.
Helping Behavioral Health Consumers with Parenting/Child Custody Issues – Training Manual
This in-depth manual provides a detailed guideline for trainers developing programs to assist consumers with psychiatric disabilities in improving their parenting skills, learning more about child custody issues, and either avoiding the loss of custody of their children or regaining custody of their children – with curriculum, PowerPoints, and exercises.
Helping Behavioral Health Consumers with Parenting/Child Custody Issues – PowerPoints
The Temple University Collaborative’s training program PowerPoint presentations and training notes provide a step-by-step guideline to initial training for mental health personnel working to help consumers with psychiatric disabilities improve their parenting and avoid the loss of custody of their children.
Helping Behavioral Health Consumers with Parenting/Child Custody Issues – Group Exercises
The Temple University Collaborative’s training program includes a number of large and small group exercises to assist staff in preparing to work with consumers with psychiatric disabilities who are parents: a number of the exercises are available here, to be used in conjunction with the overall training program and PowerPoint provided above.
Keeping Your Children and Getting Them Back: Section I – Guidebook
This trainers’ guide provides a comprehensive overview for training mental health personnel to assist consumers with psychiatric disabilities in learning more about child abuse laws and the child custody issues with which they must be aware – it was developed by consultants to the Temple University Collaborative.
Keeping Your Children and Getting Them Back: Section II – Handouts
This addendum to Section I provides access to key handouts for the training program on Keeping Your Children and Getting Them Back, including handouts on: a) Child Welfare and Custody Issues, Positive Parenting and Child Resilience, A Parenting Resources Worksheet, and a listing of Additional Resources for Parents.
Preventing Custody Loss: Suggestions for Parents with Psychiatric Disabilities
The best way to prevent custody loss is to have a plan that helps consumers improve their parenting skills while managing their disability: This brief tool provides suggestions on how to create a plan to protect the best interests of your child and to demonstrate your maturity as a parent.
Trauma: The Impact of Removing Children from the Home
This brief fact sheet provides an overview of current research that explores the impact of removing children from the home, with an emphasis on the trauma experiences in those instances where children have been removed due to court determination that the parent is unable to care for their children due to mental illnesses.
Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect Laws in Pennsylvania – A Training Handout
Developed by a leader in the field of families and couples dealing with mental illnesses and child custody issues, this is a key guide for parents who have lost custody or are facing the possibility of custody loss: it includes a detailed overview of what constitutes child abuse and neglect in Pennsylvania, as well as a discussion of parents’ rights with regard to custody and family reunification.
Parenting With A Mental Illness
On January 21st, 2016 The Temple University Collaborative hosted a one hour long webinar focusing on Parenting with a Mental Illness. Various factors such as discrimination, lack of supports, and high levels of stress can all lead to complications as a parent with a mental illness. During the webinar we will discuss strategies parents can use, findings from our Parenting Internet Education study, and discuss our new Parenting Online Education resource, which will allow parents from all over to get information for children under the age of 18.
Transcript available!
Introduction to our new Parenting Online Education Tool
The Temple University Collaborative is proud to introduce a new online Parenting Education website. We have compiled resources for parents with a mental illness packaged in an easy to use website that separates children by age ranges up to 18, and provides information and tips on parenting with a mental illness. This video shows how to use the website, and more information can be found on our website as well as information about how to begin participation
Mental Health and Parenting: How Your Disability Affects Your Child
Psychiatric disabilities come with many unique challenges. When you couple having a psychiatric disability with being a parent, there can be even more concerns — those that have to do solely with the psychiatric disability, those that have to do solely with parenting and those that involve the intersection of both. In these instances, arming yourself with knowledge about your psychiatric disability and its effects on your children and your family can be incredibly helpful. In this module, we will discuss how to educate yourself, your supporters and potentially our child about your psychiatric disability, and we will discuss prejudice, recovery and empowerment for you. We will examine the impact of mental health issues on your family, including how to recognize whether your child has a mental health issue. As a result of completing this module and doing the work that accompanies it, you should have a better understanding of your mental health and its effects on your child. This has the potential for making you a better parent.
Mental Health and Parenting: Helping Your Child Cope
As a parent with a psychiatric disability, you have extra challenges. Not only do you need to manage your psychiatric disability, but it is critical to support your children and help them cope with the effects of it as well. This module can give you tools and tips to help your child cope. The good news is that even though it may be difficult to help your children cope, you have the ability to make thoughtful decisions about how you want to help them, and this, in turn, will foster much resilience in your children. They may actually grow to be more compassionate and sensitive to others as a result of your helping them understand how your psychiatric disability affects you and them.
Mental Health and Parenting: Self-care, Relapse Prevention and Crisis Planning
If you have a psychiatric disability, you will likely experience periods of remission, or times when your symptoms are not present. Sometimes symptoms of your psychiatric disability may be mild or moderate. At other times, you will find that these symptoms intensify and become severe. We call that period of severe symptoms a relapse. Relapse is defined as “an exacerbation or intensification of symptoms severe enough to interfere with daily living activities.”1 When you have a relapse, it can also be said that you are experiencing an acute episode of your psychiatric disability. Relapse prevention is when a person with a psychiatric disability actively prevents a relapse from occurring. Researchers have determined that most relapses can be predicted and prevented. People with psychiatric disabilities often prevent relapses by developing relapse prevention plans when they are experiencing no or mild symptoms. We will talk more about relapse prevention plans on the following pages.
Stress Reduction: Emotional Health and Wellness
In this module on Emotional Health and Well-Being, we discuss how you can reduce your stress by taking care of your mental and emotional health. Working at staying healthy emotionally will reduce your stress; it might even improve your mental health so you have fewer symptoms or less of a need for emergency interventions. Furthermore, reducing your stress by maintaining good emotional health will allow you to be a more responsive parent and a healthier person overall.
Stress Reduction: Physical Health and Wellness
In the module on Physical Health and Well-Being, we talk about important benefits of taking care of your physical health. As a parent, you can be guaranteed a certain amount of stress. As a parent with a psychiatric disability, you experience even greater stress sometimes. This is because you must deal with managing your psychiatric disability while you are parenting. You might have to juggle child care so you can attend to treatment or manage the symptoms of your psychiatric disability, such as feeling low energy or hearing voices, while being responsive to your children’s needs. It is imperative that you take care of yourself both physically and emotionally so you can reduce the amount of stress in your life and ultimately be a better parent. While it may sometimes be a challenge to focus on physical health when dealing with a psychiatric disability, it is very important to do so. Taking care of your physical health can actually make your psychiatric disability easier to manage by preventing the stress of physical problems, which can contribute to episodes of your psychiatric disability. In addition, reducing stress and feeling physically well will make for a much more enjoyable parenting experience. This module will focus on maintaining your physical health and wellness. We will discuss how good nutrition, exercise and healthy sleep habits will positively affect your physical wellness and lower your stress. Other aspects of maintaining your physical health, such as making regular doctor visits and handling medication issues, will also be discussed.
Stress Reduction: Parenting Techniques Ages 0-3
Raising children can be stressful for every parent, not only for parents with psychiatric disabilities. To be a good parent, you need to be continually attentive to the changing needs and wants of your child. This can be difficult, especially when you are trying to manage your household, engage in a relationship with your partner and possibly hold down a job at the same time. As a parent with a psychiatric disability, you may feel even more stress because you may also need to work at managing your symptoms. Healthy parenting is essential to reducing your overall stress level. Understandably, as a parent of a child ages 0-3, you may have difficulty creating routines. Babies and toddlers take time to adjust to a schedule, and there may be days where, despite your best efforts, they will not be able to follow it. Even so, there are many things that you can do to help your child. On the following pages, we will examine some of the areas of concern to parents of children ages 0-3 and we will provide some tips for how to deal with stressful situations that may occur. Some of these tips will be directly related to reducing your stress while others may be more general.
Stress Reduction: Parenting Techniques Ages 4-9
Raising children can be stressful for every parent, not only for parents with psychiatric disabilities. To be a good parent, you need to be continually attentive to the changing needs and wants of your child. This can be difficult, especially when you are trying to manage your household, engage in a relationship with your partner and possibly hold down a job at the same time. As a parent with a psychiatric disability, you may feel even more stress because you may also need to work at managing your symptoms. Healthy parenting is essential to reducing your overall stress level. Understandably, as a parent of a child ages 0-3, you may have difficulty creating routines. Babies and toddlers take time to adjust to a schedule, and there may be days where, despite your best efforts, they will not be able to follow it. Even so, there are many things that you can do to help your child. On the following pages, we will examine some of the areas of concern to parents of children ages 0-3 and we will provide some tips for how to deal with stressful situations that may occur. Some of these tips will be directly related to reducing your stress while others may be more general.
Stress Reduction: Parenting Techniques Ages 10-13
Raising children can be stressful for every parent, not only for parents with psychiatric disabilities. To be a good parent, you need to be continually attentive to the changing needs and wants of your child. This can be difficult, especially when you are trying to manage your household, engage in a relationship with your partner and possibly hold down a job at the same time. As a parent with a psychiatric disability, you may feel even more stress because you may also need to work at managing your symptoms. Healthy parenting is essential to reducing your overall stress level. On the following pages, we will examine some of the areas of concern to parents of children ages 10-13 and we will provide some tips for how to deal with stressful situations that may occur when parenting a “tween.” Some of these tips will be directly related to reducing your stress while others may be more general
Stress Reduction: Parenting Techniques Ages 14-18
Raising children can be stressful for every parent, not only for parents with psychiatric disabilities. To be a good parent, you need to be continually attentive to the changing needs and wants of your child. This can be difficult, especially when you are trying to manage your household, engage in a relationship with your partner and possibly hold down a job at the same time. As a parent with a psychiatric disability, you may feel even more stress because you may also need to work at managing your symptoms. Healthy parenting is essential to reducing your overall stress level. On the following pages, we will examine some of the areas of concern to parents of children ages 14 to 18 and we will provide some tips for how to deal with stressful situations that may occur when parenting an adolescent. Some of these tips will be directly related to reducing your stress while others may be more general.
Child Development: Ages 0-3
An important part of parenting is knowing what to expect from your child at any given age. As they grow, children change and acquire skills, and they require different things from you. The following section highlights some of the things you might ex-pect to see in your young child. As newborns begin to settle in, sleeping and feeding become the focus of much of your attention. As babies move into toddler-hood, concerns over learning to talk, potty training, staying safe and establishing social relationships are some of the exciting challenges they face.
Child Development: Ages 4-9
An important part of parenting is knowing what to expect from your child at any given age. As they grow, children change and acquire skills, and they require differ-ent things from you. The following section highlights some of the things you might expect to see in your young child. As children move into the school-age years, language development and reading as well as physical and social issues continue to be some of the exciting challenges they face.
Child Development: Ages 10-13
An important part of parenting is knowing what to expect from your child at any given age. As they grow, children change and acquire skills, and they require different things from you. The following section highlights some of the things you might expect to see in your emerging adolescent. School and after-school activities are an important focus, and safety and privacy concerns emerge in a more significant way during this stage of your child’s development.
Child Development: Ages 14-18
An important part of parenting involves knowing what to expect from your child at any given age. As they grow, children change and acquire skills, and they require different things from you. This document highlights some of the things you might expect to see in your adolescent. Adolescents present special challenges to parents, with issues including school and career decisions; friends and social relationships; and heightened safety concerns, particularly regarding alcohol and drug use, and risk-taking behavior