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In their seminal book Family Matters, editors Peter Reder, Mike McClure and Anthony Jolley (2000) made the case for joined up thinking regarding the mental health needs of children, young people and adults. They issued a challenge to those planning and providing mental health services, saying, ‘… creative initiatives could be conceived and implemented … These initiatives would recognise that, when one person presents with psychological problems, each other member of their family matters.’
Out of the Mainstream describes one such creative response. It is a description of the service developed in Tower Hamlets to address the needs of children whose parents suffered from mental illness. The book is edited, and a number of chapters are written, by Rosemary Loshak, the co-ordinator of the project; other professionals associated with the service have also contributed chapters. It is divided into three parts. The first sets out the issues to be addressed, the second describes the service that was developed in response to these issues and the third gives some of the backdrop to the project – the safety-net of other services and agencies within which it was able to operate.
Part One has two main themes – the situation in which these children and their families find themselves and the need for agencies to work together to meet the complexity of their needs. One myth that is quickly dispelled is that of ‘not burdening children with knowledge about their parent’s illness’. A chapter entitled, ‘What children say’ clearly shows that children know only too well from their daily experience that their parents are not alright. What they desperately need is help to understand what is going on and to know that they are not alone. A further chapter looks at the impact on children of parental illness, in particular on their safety and development. Child psychotherapists would probably hope to pursue this particular issue in more depth, for example by reference to the work of Gianna William